Spitfire Collection
by TheRantDragon
Summary: The early ones suck so feel free to start from the back and work forward until they stop being decent. Short drabbles and oneshots all centered around the Wally and Artemis pairing and/or the individual characters. Some are prompted by friends on Tumblr and some are purely my own doing. Ratings vary from K-T. Enjoy!
1. Ignorance is Bliss

**Disclaimer- Don't own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Title: **Ignorance is Bliss

**Characters/pairing: **Wally/Artemis

**Genre: **Humor/General/Romance

**Rating: **T for suggestive scenarios and language.

**Promptee: **The loverly CloaksandDaggers. And the prompt was "Someone accidentally wakes up in the wrong bed in the morning with someone else. Neither remember how this happened and assume the worst, but as they back-track, they realize it wasn't as bad as all that...(or maybe it's worse, it's up to you though ;))"

**Title: **Ignorance is Bliss (because I couldn't think of anything)

o.o.o.o

Never in her life had Artemis woken up feeling so warm and relaxed.

The covers draped over her bare shoulders were thick and soft, just right for the cool fall weather that had blown in over the past weeks. They smelled really good, a weird mix of laundry detergent and maybe cologne. Cetainly not the smell her own covers usually carried.

She attempted to open one of her lids, but was blinded by unrelenting sunlight filtering in from a window. With a lazy, contented sigh she rolled over, placing her back to the light and inching closer to a pleasant source of warmth on the right side of the bed.

It was strange for her brain to be so sluggish in the morning. She could barely seem to process anything at all, even the horrifying fact that she was in a bed that didn't seem to be hers, juding by the smell, nor that the "pleasant source of warmth" had a heartbeat.

Indeed, she simply ignored these thoughts and snuggled closer, pressing her face into the crook of the person's neck. Exhaled breath ruffled the loose locks of hair just above her forehead. With a smile she pulled her arms between herself and the warmth, and was nearly back to sleep when her body finally, _finally _started to register that something was wrong.

Very wrong.

_Wait a minute...this isn't-!_

There was a knocking sound.

"Wally, dear, wake up! There's some breakfast waiting for you on the kitchen table. I'm heading to work, don't sleep all day!"

The sound of retreating footsteps. The distant slam of a door.

Then silence.

And Artemis's brain went into full on panic mode. Her gray eyes snapped open, taking in the neck she had previously decided it would be cool to stuff her face into.

_Wally's neck._

Somehow she stifled the scream that ripped from her throat and jerked away from him, tumbling out of the bed and onto one knee before continuing her mad scramble backwards and slamming into the wall opposite.

The snoring speedster didn't so much as twitch at the movement.

Her heart was pounding and her addled brain was just trying to understand _what the ever lasting fuck she was doing in Wally West's freakin' __**bedroom**_.

Artemis's locomotive systems had failed her. All she could do was stand there and stare at his sleeping form. The gentle rise and fall of his chest, the light dusting of freckles across his bare shoulder, and the sunlight bathing his face...

A face with a nasty looking gash across it. His left cheek was marred by two deep slashes running along his jaw bone and up, stopping just beneath a swollen eyelid. It was purple and yellow around the edges and looked infected.

She would have felt concern, but there were bigger fish to be fried. She forced her leg muscles to work and crossed back over to the bed, jerked the pillow from beneath his head and proceeded to whack him with it.

Wally came to with a yelp, falling into a heap on the floor.

"The hell?" he snapped. Fists came up to rub at tired eyes, and when he finally opened them, they blinked several times before widening in abject horror.

"_Artemis_? What are you...what..."

"I was about to ask you the same thing! What the hell am I doing in your bedroom!"

Wally sprung to his feet, clad in nothing but a loose pair of blue jeans that fell so low they left hardly anything to the imagination. Not that she _wanted _to imagine anything below his waist line.

"Screw that," he snapped, pointing an accusatory finger in her direction. "What are you doing in my _clothes_?"

Upon inspection she found that the baggy white tank top and checkered boxer shorts didn't belong to her, nor were they part of her normal nighttime ensemble. Her cheeks flushed because the top revealed just a little more cleavage than necessary. She yanked it up high, growling.

"I don't know, you tell me!"

"I-hey. Hey, what happened to your stomach?" His voice and face changed to that of concern. He took a few paces in her direction.

Confused, Artemis peered down at the sliver of skin she'd exposed when she lifted the shirt up. A flat white bandage covered a large area of her stomach and was dotted with dried blood. Fingers itched to remove it, to see the damage beneath, but she thought better of it when she looked back up at his face.

"What happened to your face?"

Wally gave her an unamused glare.

"Really, Artemis? What are you, five?"

"No, Kid Idiot, check in a mirror!" she said, pointing at one she could see poking out from an open bathroom door on the other side of his room.

Pursing his lips, he turned, which was probably a good thing. Another few seconds and she was sure his pants would've slipped down to reveal a little more of his anatomy than she ever wanted to see.

While he was observing himself, she took the opportunity to survey the room. It was pretty typical, clothes strewn all over the place, posters on the wall, state-of-the-art computer in the corner...and a med kit open, it's contents strewn across the carpet.

Okay, that wasn't so typical.

"Yikes, what hit me?" came Wally's voice.

"My guess?" Artemis countered dully, picking up bloody gauze and peroxide covered cotton balls from the floor. "Probably someone you pissed off. So that's a wide range of possibilities."

"Harr-dy-harr harr," he replied blandly, stepping back in.

She gestured at the kit. He rubbed the back of his hair and shrugged.

"Look, I'm at just as much of a loss here, Artemis. My...my memorie's a little fuzzy."

"Mine too...First aid kit on the floor, open window...and oh look, _there _are my clothes."

Vibrant yellow and deep green uniforms were in a heap near the bed, covered in dirt and looking very tattered. Her quiver and bow were leaning against Wally's nightstand. There were no arrows left.

But the archer's statement didn't bring them any comfort at all. Now the evidence was pointing more and more into quite the awkward...er...scenario.

_Oh god, did...did we take off our clothes in front of each other?_

She stole a glance in his direction, saw that his face was flushed and knew he must be thinking the same thing.

"Come on, Wally, think. What did we..."

She trailed off, squinted her eyes shut and thought hard...

o.o.o.o

_She remembered Wally carrying her, remembered a burning pain in her stomach, one that was soon blazing through her entire body._ _The speedster had run for at least an hour, stumbling and pitching every now and again, jarring her wound. It was almost as if he had been drunk._

_She remembered arriving at a house, _his _house, probably through the open window in his room; she couldn't remember that part. _

_He'd set her on his bed and fetched a first aid kit, staggering back into the room. She remembered the whole room spinning in her vision, feeling as if she were going to puke, and everything had been so bright and kind of silly looking._

_"Wally," she'd slurred, pulling her mask off. "Wally."_

_"S'matter, beautiful?"_

_"You...yer kind of hot." _

_"Tha's nice. Take your shirt off."_

_She glowered at him._

_"That's...that's rude. You haven't taken me out to dinner yet."_

_He paused, blinking at her slowly, uncomprehendingly, brain fizzled by toxins._

_"I shared my popcorn with you the other night."_

_"Oh."_

_"Take your shirt off so...so I can fix yer booboo," he coaxed, waving peroxide covered gauze through the air. He'd spilled quite a bit of it on the floor in the process._

_Neither of them seemed to realize that the cut was in an area where there was no need to remove the top half of her uniform, but she removed it anyway, tossing it to the floor carelessly._

_"Don't...don' you dare lookit my chest, or...I'll shove an arrow up your ass," she warned, swaying, forgetting she _had _no arrows left to hold true to her threat. Her whole body ached from the toxins eating at her system._

_He ignored her, dabbing clumsily at her gash. She winced in pain and clutched his shoulders as the liquid bubbled up. After going through several cottonballs, he slapped a big white bandage on it haphazardly and declared,"All done!"_

_"Okay. Now you take your shirt off!"_

_She reached for the hem of his "shirt", but instead found her fingers clutching at the fabric of his uniform. She frowned, tugging uselessly. _

_Then she giggled._

_"Ha, you have to take your...all your clothes off!"_

_"That's not fair," he started to protest, but then Artemis grabbed him and pressed her lips against his. His lips were chapped and dry but they tasted warm and good and somewhere in her drunken mind she thought he still tasted like popcorn._

_She pulled away, breathing heavily, looking blissful as she laughed._

_"You didn't kiss me baaack."_

_"I can't..."_

_"Why not?"_

_"Because I still...have my shirt on," Wally told her, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Wait..."_

_He stripped his suit off and tossed it in the floor with the top half of her uniform, leaving him in nothing but striped boxers. Smiling dopily, he took a pair of rumpled blue jeans from the floor and put them on._

_"Okay, now I can kiss you."_

_And so they did, her hands resting on his freckle dusted shoulders, sliding down his back to rest flat against his shoulder blades. He smirked against her lips, pulling her close, and they thoroughly enjoyed every second even in their muddled state. _

_After a few minutes, they pulled back, breathing heavily, faces flushed from not just the kissing, but the toxin working itself out. Little did they know they'd soon be retching as their bodies expelled the foriegn substance._

_Wally frowned._

_"Um...what were we doing...before?"_

_"I don't know," Artemis admitted, then yawned. "I'm...tired."_

o.o.o.o

"Artemis?"

Artemis flinched back into reality at the feel of Wally's hand brushing her shoulder. She looked at him, standing close, that painful looking wound on his face even more yellow than moments ago.

"I...what?"

"I said, I think I know what happened."

"Uh, I remember...poison...or something. I felt...drunk." she admitted, holding her forehead. He nodded.

"Me too. Everything was really fuzzy. But before that, I think we were on a mission."

"That's right. We were. And it was..."

"Poison... Poison Ivy!" Wally exclaimed, subconsciously touching his face. "And she hit us with these vines. And the vines had thorns on them!"

Suddenly it all became very clear to them. Poison Ivy's vines had been covered in thorns coated with some sort of toxin, a toxin that had affected their bodies in a way remarkebly similar to alcohol.

"And we...uh...I brought you to my house..."

"Yeah..."

"And we, we fell asleep."

"In your bed. Together."

"Yeah."

Neither of them dared broach the topic of kissing, or stripping their clothes. They both knew though, shot each other piercing, knowing glances that made their cheeks flame.

"So...we should probably go to Mount Justice. If we got hit, odds are the others did, too." Wally said after a long and very uncomfortable silence. Artemis nodded, picking her tattered suit up off the floor. She made her way over to the bathroom, but stopped just before she entered. She chewed her lip, then turned and gave him a small smile.

"Thanks for, uh, patching me up."

He grinned.

"No problem, beautiful."

The bathroom door closed. Then, she poked her head back out, deadly serious in both tone and expression.

"Oh, and Wally?"

"Yeah?"

"_Nobody _knows about this but us, or I'll shove an arrow so far up your ass-"

"Yeah, yeah, shut up and put your clothes on."


	2. Keeping Warm

**Title**:** Keeping Warm **

**Character/pairings**: **WallArt, the rest of the team **

**Rating**: **T**

**Genre**:** General/Romance (there's also a little bit of humor, because, come on, that's what I do!)**

**Promptee: Myself! This is just a general idea I've had for a long time and finally decided to dish it out!**

o.o.o.o**  
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He didn't like the cold. He didn't like the snow.

He _hated _this mission.

He hated it because it was stupid, because who on earth would believe a phony news story about some Big Foot-esque monster roaming the Rockies? Apparently Batman believed it, believed the articles about a dozen hikers going missing over the past week.

So here they were.

And it was dark and cold and the wind was howling so loudly in his ears he couldn't hear himself think.

The worst part about all of it was that he was with _her_.

And maybe if they had been in these stupid snow covered rocks a month ago, he would've hated it for the mere fact he was in her annoying, pain-in-the-ass presence.

But that was before she'd died.

Died in the bleak white ice of the Arctic.

The thought still made him shiver, made his throat tighten, made his heart ache...

He hated the cold more than ever now. Hated it for the memories it brought with it. Hated the fact that it had taken her death for him to realize how much she meant to him...

"Wally?"

He turned to look at her, arms crossed tight over his chest to keep warm. Not that it was really needed, what with his high body temperature and ability to shift his molecules at high speed to keep toasty.

"Yeah?"

Artemis looked cold as hell. Her fur lined coat did little against the biting winds whipping her hair back, and he saw her eyes and nose scrunch beneath her goggles.

"This blows."

He smirked.

"Took the words right out of my mouth, beautiful. "

No more had he finished speaking when snow began to fall, adding to the numbness of the wind.

"Ugh, this is pointless, there's nothing out here," he grumbled, and reached within the mind link to speak.

_Guys, this is a no go. There's nothing here._

_KF's right, it's a wild goose chase, _came Robin's reply.

_I am inclined to agree_, said Kaldur. _Perhaps it best we return to the Bioship before the snowfall becomes a problem._

_Sounds better than freezing to death._

Wally physically flinched at the archer's casual statement.

_No argument here, _and that's Supey's dull reply.

_Then it is settled. Everyone make your way back to the-_

Something** hurt**.

Wally screamed and brought his hands to his head, vaguely registering that Artemis was screaming and clutching her skull, too. It only lasted for a second, like the sharp pain of pulling a band-aid off with a quick tug.

The pain subsided and around that time they heard the scream reach their location.

M'gann's scream.

Conner's roar of rage and Wolf's snarls.

Wally and Artemis exchanged a glance.

Something had gone horribly wrong, because the link had been disconnected, snipped by an invisible pair of scissors.

He pulled his goggles down, she notched an arrow to her bow, and they ran, start running toward the sounds echoing in the distance. It was kind of difficult to pin point their origin, because of all the bouncing noises. The snow was coming down harder and harder and Wally knew that if they didn't move faster they wouldn't make it in time.

He moved behind Artemis, scooped her up in one swift motion that caused her to let out a surprised yell. He put on a sudden burst of speed that sent snowy slush feet into the air from take off point, and then it was one big game of dodging trees.

That was, until he tripped. Or slipped, whatever the hell happened.

All he knew was that one second he'd been moving and Artemis had been clinging to him for dear life, the next, there was a fire in his ankle and they'd soared through the air.

A yell ripped from Wally's throat. It was all he could do to not let go of Artemis as they tumbled. His back hit the ground, knocking the air from his lungs. Pure chaos engulfed his senses as he was tossed head over heel.

Finally, they came to a skidding stop in a snowdrift.

Wally lifted his head slowly. Artemis was to his left, shaking snow from her hair, groaning with pain.

"Are you okay?" he managed.

"I think so. But..." she glanced with dismay at her askew quiver; it was empty of arrows. They'd been lost on the stumble down the mountain.

"It's fine, we'll...ow!"

Wally sucked in a breath and grabbed his ankle, cursing.

"Not again! Man, I _just _got that damn cast off-"

His words trailed off at the sound of a mighty roar in the distance. They stayed quiet, but nothing else was heard.

"Superboy?" Artemis asked skeptically, helping Wally to his feet.

"I don't think so..."

The two teens hobbled over to a big wide tree and slumped against the trunk. It was the best they could do for the moment.

They checked his ankle. Artemis assured him it was just a sprain...

Then they went silent.

A million questions ran through his head as fast as his super speed: What had happened? Why was the link cut? What happened to M'gann? What the _hell _had made that ungodly roaring noise?

It all became too much, because he knew they couldn't do anything in this state even if they could. They were stuck in the snow until someone helped them.

He shook his head and looked over at Artemis. Her eyes were steely, her mouth set in a grim line and he knew she must have been thinking the same hopeless thoughts as he. Except she was better for not showing it.

He smiled, because even though she was hiding it, he could see her body shaking with cold.

"Well, since we're going to be here awhile..." Wally said languidly, stretching one arm out to wrap around her shoulders. She shot him a murderous glance.

"Wally, this isn't funny. Something _bad _just happened to Megan."

He frowned.

"I know. I wasn't laughing."

"We have to do something."

"Okay, sure. I'll hobble in on my bad ankle doing a deadly 10 miles per hour, and then you can come in right behind me to deliver some kicks to Big Foot's face."

Artemis shook her head and clutched it, tired of his bullshit.

"Whatever. But we can't just sit here and do nothing! The other's need our help, and it's so cold out here I think my hair's freezing!" she yelled the last half, startling Wally a bit.

She couldn't stand feeling weak. He couldn't blame her, but when you're out of commish, you're out of commish.

So he shrugged and took his arm off her shoulders, then grabbed her hand and pulled her glove off by the tip. Her eyes widened.

"Wally, what-"

He cupped her hand between both of his and concentrated, working the molecules there into a frenzy. He heard her let out a soft gasp.

o.o.o.o

It was the strangest feeling in the world.

She'd never noticed how small her hands were to his until that moment, because it'd never mattered.

She felt the vibrations against her skin and suddenly her hand was pleasantly warm, as if she'd never set foot out into the cold, as if that hand had been clutching a hot mug of coacoa all evening long. She looked up at him, saw his tongue between his teeth in focus.

"That's convenient," she commented hoarsely, pulling her hand from his grasp.

"Just one of the many perks of being a speedster."

Artemis slid her hand back into it's mit, and was shocked, upon looking back up, to see Wally unzipping his coat.

"Hey, what are you-?"

"Wrap your arms around me." he commanded, holding the coat open.

"I'd rather not."

"Why?"

"Because I'm me and you're you, and we can barely share air, let alone body heat."

He let out an exasperated sigh.

"Look, this isn't the time. We can go back to hating each other later, and I won't tell anyone about this if you don't."

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, skeptical.

"Since when did you become all mature and reasonable?"

He grinned.

"I'm not, I'm just being logical so we don't freeze our asses off. But thank you for the compliment, it's nice to know you think so highly of me!"

She scoffed.

"If I told you what I _think _of you, you'd be crying right now.

"Artemis?"

"Yes?"

"Shut up and hug me."

She didn't respond for a moment.

Then, with a sigh, she relented and scootched closer to him, wrapping her arms around his chest. He hugged her back, wrapping the coat around them both.

His upper body vibrated against her, and it simply felt like he was shivering, except that this shivering immediately warmed her entire body and relaxed her until she felt like she could fall asleep on him.

Artemis rested her cheek against his chest and smiled.

"Okay, this is worth being in close proximity to you."

"Gee, thanks."

"I bet you give wicked massages."

"Maybe, but the likes of you will never find out."

She laughed despite herself and snuggled closer. His heart beat like a drum in her ear.

And clearly the heat was frying her brain cells, because this just wasn't normal Wally/Artemis behavior.

"God, I _hate _this," Wally spat suddenly, after awhile of silence. She started and pulled back slightly, shocked at the angry look on his face.

"What?"

He looked down at her, green eyes blazing.

"The cold and snow. "

"I thought you liked the snow?" she queried, confused by his hostility.

"Not anymore. Not since..." but he trailed off, cheeks flushing, no longer meeting her eyes.

"Not since what?"

"...since you died."

His answer was quiet, level. He was still not looking at her, and it took her a minute to even understand what he was saying.

Then she remembered that catastrophe of a training excercise, the one that had taken her life and put her in a coma. The one that had _felt _real even though it was fake. And she had _known _it was fake up until that desintigrating laser was pointed her direction. All rational thought had left her brain and her heart had pounded and she'd known all was lost...

Then there had been a blinding pain like none she'd ever felt, her bones turned to dust on the wind as everything went black...

Artemis shuddered and Wally tightened his embrace on her, mistaking it for coldness.

"Wally...I-"

_Kid Flash? Artemis?_

They both jerked in alarm at the sudden invasion of their cozy little bubble.

The link had been re-established, albeit weak and faint.

_Kaldur, we're here. What happened?_

_Something...attacked. It caught Miss Martian and Superboy off guard. M'gann received a blow to the head powerful and painful enough to disrupt our link temporarily. By the time Robin and I reached their location they'd fought the...creature off. It retreated into the forest._

_Everyone's okay? _Artemis asked.

_Yes. I do not believe Miss Martian's head injury is too serious. What of you?_

_We're fine. But..uh, you might need to pick us up, I don't think we can make it back to the Bioship._

_Why?_

_Because Kid Clutz here decided to trip and twist his ankle on our way to the action._

_Well, at least I didn't lose my weapons!_

_What! That was entirely your fault!_

_Maybe if you didn't _weigh _so much I wouldn't have tripped and-_

_**Enough**__, _Aqualad said forcefully. _Send a mental image of your position and we will pick you up as soon as the snow slows down._

The link went silent.

Artemis shot Wally a glare and jerked away from his grip.

And just like that, they were back to their belligerent game, as if nothing even remotely heartfelt had happened between them seconds ago.

"We should do this more often," Wally stated cheerfully.

"Get caught in the snow and vibrate for warmth? No thanks."

"Oh, I can do other things with vibration besides create warmth..." he said suggestively. Very, _very _suggestively. Her cheeks flushed indignantly and she punched his arm. _Hard_. Twice.

"_Wally!"_


	3. A Favor

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Young Justice or it's characters!

**Prompt Provider: **CloaksandDaggers. Prompted a situation in which Wally does Artemis a favor, but in which he does it all on his own and not because she asked him to.

**Rating: **K

0.0.0

She walked up to him and dropped a sheet of slightly crumpled college ruled paper in his lap.

Wally raised an eyebrow, glanced down at the big A+ circled in red ink. He smiled.

"That's great, Artemis. Let me just get a magnet and I'll pin it to the refigerator."

He stood up and let the paper float down to the floor, didn't meet her eyes as he strolled leisurely into the kitchen to peruse the contents of the cabinets.

"Wally."

No response. He reached for a bag of tasty looking potato chips.

"_Wally._"

"What?," he asked, spinning to face her. "Do you want me to clap? Give you a gold star? A medal? Yeesh, Artemis, you're a sophomore, it's time to let the homework praise go."

"Will you stop being a prick for five seconds and just tell me _why _you finished my science homework for me?" she blurted out.

A tense silence. Was it just him, or was it a little hot all of a sudden?

"Who cares? You got a passing grade, all is right with the world, why question it?"

"Because I'm..._me_. And you're..._you."_

A pause.

"Hmmm...good point."

"Well?"

The speedster sighed.

"Look, I was just doing you a favor, okay? I came here for a midnight snack and you were alseep at the counter with drool all over your homework and itwasalittlecute and I felt sorry for you, AND I know how it feels to be so tired you can't finish your homework. We all do."

He shoved a handful of chips into his mouth and walked over to the fridge for a soda without even giving her a second glance.

Awkward silence.

"I...thanks, Wally. That was really..._nice_, of you." The word sounded foreign on her lips.

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it. I only took pity on you because you were drowning in a pool of your own saliva. Which was disgusting, by the way."

"Don't you mean _cute_?"


	4. A Touch of Camouflage

**Disclaimer- Don't own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Title: **A Touch of Camouflage

**Characters/pairings: **WallArt, Robin

**Genre: **Humor

**Rating: **K+

**Promptee: **Myself. This was just a silly little idea. I noticed Artemis seemed to finally have the same camouflage tech in her suit as Wally in the episode_ Humanity, _so I thought, well, what if Wally himself created that technology and was nice enough to install it in Arty's uniform for her?

o.o.o.o

She couldn't find her unifrom.

Well, she couldn't find the _other half_ of her uniform.

This left her traipsing around Mount Justice in the pants and combat boots of her uniform and a white tank top in place of the rest. Batman had called them nearly 5 minutes ago for briefing, so that meant 5 minutes of the precious 10 minute warning he'd given them had already melted away, and she was topless!

Er, so to speak.

She tore through the closet of her "room", wondering if maybe it had somehow ended up in there, but that was a no go. She growled in frustration and stood up from her crouch to think about the next logical place to look.

If she was late, Batman would either get really pissed or else brief the team without her...or both. She winced, not liking the idea of getting on the Dark Knight's bad side.

Artemis had just left her room and was turning to go down the hallway when she collided with someone.

"Oof!"

"Ouch!"

"Wally? Watch where you're going!"

"Here's a better idea, how about you stop wearing freakin' _cleats_. Jesus, I think you broke my toe."

The archer rolled her eyes. She was prepared to make yet another snarky comment back to him when her eyes landed on something in his arm.

She smacked the back of his head. He yelped and dropped the dark green material.

"_Ow! _What the hell was that for?"

She scooped up the top half of her uniform and shook it in front of his stupid, freckly face.

"Why do you have this? Are you _trying _to get Bats pissed at me?"

"What? No!" he defended, holding up his hands in a placating gesture.

"Some sick prank?"

"Never! I-"

"Ugh, Wally, why-"

"I was installing a camouflage mode in your uniform!" Wally finally yelled over her, and then poked the lightning bolt symbol on his chest, causing the vibrant yellow fabric to slowly meld into black.

Artemis narrowed her eyes.

"_Honest_. Look, will you please just put that on and try it out?" he gestured to the limp cloth draped over her arm. He sounded irritated.

"Fine."

She slipped into her room for a moment to switch out her tank top for the uniform, then popped back out, mask down, her arms crossed over her chest.

They stared for a moment, then he shook his head in exasperation.

"Well?"

"So...what? I just push this?"

"Yes."

"And it'll turn my suit black?"

"Well, more of a really dark green."

"That seems kind of redundant."

"Yeah, well, it's not. Just push it."

"Okay, I...wait."

"Now what?"

"How is this going to change my whole suit, if you just stole the top half?"

"Oh. That. I, uh, kinda took your pants earlier today and did them, too.

Silence.

Artemis cleared her throat, then raised one hand and pressed her fingers lightly against the arrow symbol on her chest. A deep green that might as well have just been black spread out from the center and cascaded over her body as if she'd been splashed with paint.

She smirked.

She had to admit, that _was _pretty cool.

"Wow."

"Pretty nifty, huh?" he asked, waggling is eyebrows. Her eyes rolled yet again as she pressed the arrow once more, her unifrom returning to it's usual color.

There was a bit of silence, then she allowed him a smile.

"Um...thanks, Wally."

"No problem, beautiful."

Really, she was going to _have _to quit rolling her eyes so much or they'd get stuck that way.

Still, it was pretty decent of him to fix up her suit like everyone else's.

_Camo mode_.

Now she wouldn't feel like a sore thumb on missions.

_Normal mode._

Not that her suit was exactly a bright color to begin with.

_Camo mode._

Still, it was nice.

_Normal mode._

She wondered what kind of technology he used to make it do that? It was seriously cool.

_Camo mode._

_Normal mode._

_Camo mode._

_Normal mode._

_Camo mode._

_Normal-_

"_Will you please quit touching yourself!_"

Artemis's eyes widened.

"What?"

The two teens stared at one another, Wally's face flushed a delicate shade of red at his sudden outburst. She'd become lost in her thoughts and had been activating and deactivating her suit over and over again without meaning to.

"I...quit pressing...button.." he stuttered lamely, and if possible his cheeks got even redder.

Then she realized why he was blushing.

And she smirked.

Memories of Bialya flooded her senses, and she'd be lying if she said her face didn't get a little warm itself.

"I'm just getting back at you for touching yourself in Bia-"

Suddenly, Robin was there. There had been no rush of wind, no tap of footsteps to announce his presence, but he was suddenly there, standing between them with the most disturbing grin on his face, looking highly amused at the conversation he'd just popped in on.

"No, please, don't stop on my account. You were saying?" he weedled, putting one hand on his chin as if paying deep attention.

Wally and Artemis's faces were surely now generating enough heat to be their own personal suns.

They both spluttered and Robin cackled gleefully.

"Look, I just came to find you guys because Bats is getting a little testy, what with you being a minute late and all."

"A _minute_!"

The Boy Wonder nodded, still looking far more happy than the situation called for.

"Briefing started a minute ago, but if you want, I can tell Batman you two are much more busy, ah, _touching yourselves_-"

He trailed off as a gale force wind buffeted him. Wally had taken off at a blinding sprint and Artemis was hot on his heels, leaving Robin in the dust.


	5. Color by Number

**Disclaimer- Don't own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Title: Color by Number**

**Characters/pairing: WallArt**

**Genre: Humor**

**Rating: K+**

**Promptee: The AWESOME Jncera, who requested "Rainy day+coloring book+crayons+Spitfire=your prompt!"**

****o.o.o.o

She didn't know why the hell there was an old coloring book in her closet, but that didn't matter.

What mattered was that is was disgusting and rainy outside, M'gann and Superboy were watching TV, Robin was probably somewhere hacking a toaster, Wally(the pig) was stuffing his face full of pepperonis from the fridge, and she, Artemis, was bored out of her flippin' mind.

There was still an entire hour to kill before Bats would show up for mission briefing, so she opened the coloring book, broke out the crayons and started doing one of those silly color-by-numbers.

The smell of pepperoni suddenly wafted in her face, and she glanced up at Kid Bottomless Pit sitting on the stool across from her. He arched an eyebrow.

"Where' you ge' 'at?" he managed through his mouth full of chewed food, pointing at the coloring book. Artemis snorted with disgust, flicking away a piece of pepperoni that had landed on the page.

"Don't talk with your mouth full." she snapped. He swallowed.

"I don't need a lesson in manners from you."

"Clearly."

"Just tell me where you got the book!"

"I found it."

"No _duh_. Where?"

"At my house," Artemis answered vaguely, picking out a blue crayon for the bear. She was pretty sure bears weren't blue, but who was she to question the almighty color-by-number?

Wally looked intrigued.

"You have a little sibling?"

"...not exactly."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She worried at her bottom lip, deciding honesty was the best policy in this instance, before she accidentally told Wally too much.

"I found it in my closet, okay?"

She tensed a little and silently counted down.

_3...2...1...uh...3...2...1...now?_

But the speedster just stuffed more pepperonis into his mouth, then reached across the table, fingers brushing against hers as he grabbed for one of the crayons spilled from the box. He pulled back with Jade Green and motioned at her with his fingers.

"Don't be stingy, rip a page out!"

Artemis stared at him for a second, then smirked and ripped one out, sliding it across the counter.

She expected him to start coloring, to look away from her at the very least, but he didn't. His eyes stayed trained on her face for the longest time. It was a little uncomfortable and random and it made her cheeks feel just a little warm, what with those green eyes practically staring into her soul. She was beginning to entertain the idea that maybe something profound might happen between them...

"I bet you were a crayon-eater."

"I..._what_?" she spluttered, shaking her head and blinking to snap out of her trance. Wally nodded, one hand on his chin, the other absently tapping the crayon against the granite surface.

"You're right, that's a stretch. I bet you shoved them up your nose."

Artemis rolled her eyes. So much for _profound._


	6. An Unlucky Arrow

**Disclaimer- Don't own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Title: An Unlucky Arrow**

**Characters/pairing: Wally, Artemis, team**

**Genre: Tragedy**

**Rating: T, mostly for language.**

**Promptee: Myself. I just wanted to try something a little darker than my usual works for these two. And, thanks to an episode of The Walking Dead, I was inspired to write this meaningless little drabble. Be aware that I don't mean to make Artemis look weak, I LOVE Artemis and she could kick anyone's ass any day of the week, but everyone has their shitastic days where everything just goes wrong, and unfortunately when you're a hero, that can prove fatal.**

o.o.o.o

It hurts.

_God_, it hurts.

How could she have been so stupid?

"_ARTEMIS!"_

She grimaces at the sound of her name on Wally's lips, wishes she could snap at him to shut up because she's fine, _just fucking peachy, _but it hurts so much she can't find her voice.

Something's going on around her, some kind of battle, the yells of her teammates as they attack the enemy with fresh anger at their injured comrade.

How could she have been so damn _stupid_?

She grunts and looks down at the protrusion, her eyes glassy and barely able to focus on the shaft sticking out of her gut. She can taste blood on her lips.

It didn't go all the way through. That's probably good...she hopes.

She can't focus on anything anymore, sighs and slumps onto her side, hands clutching the the arrow.

_Her _arrow.

She'd seen the guy's armor, had seen Robin's gadgets bounce off and almost blow them to bits. She knew better.

_She knew better, _damnit.

_'If I die, I deserve it...,' _she thinks vaguely, cheek resting against the cold floor.

An explosion rattles off in the distance and she wants so desperately to help.

And maybe it's a stupid thing to cry about, but she feels tears stinging her eyes. This was the second time she'd failed the team, the second time she'd died(well, she wasn't dead yet _this time_, but she figures it's only a matter of time).

It makes her feel inadequate.

Is it her lack of skill or some form of karma or is she just a magnet for shit luck?

She doesn't know.

All she knows is that someone is gently turning her over, cradling the upper portion of her body in their arms.

"Artemis..."

Glazed eyes blinked wearily, crossed in pain as she tries to bring Wally's form into focus. She swallows, coughes. Blood trickles down her mouth and he wipes it away with his thumb.

She tries and tries to clear her vision enough to see his face, but she is fighting a losing battle. Her voice won't work; even though she feels it moving, no words come forth.

"Artemis, hang on."

She can hear shouts now, can hear someone yelling for M'gann to get the Bioship over asap.

As the footsteps of her teammates grow closer and closer, her eyes roll into her skull and everything goes black.

o.o.o.o

**In my fic canon version of this, Artemis didn't die, because I just can't stand killing off characters, especially my favorite. However, the way I ended it ultimately let's the reader decided: you can either accept my fic canon of her living, or you can read into it that she died. Your choice! **


	7. Midnight Snack

**Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters!**

**Title: Midnight Snack**

**Characters/pairing: WallArt, also the Team be here.**

**Genre: Romance/General**

**Rating: T for language**

**Promptee: CloaksandDaggers! She wanted a Spitfire midnight snack scenario and this is the result! **

**Note that this story was previously posted alone under the title "Of Pancakes and Pudding". I realized it was far too short to be on it's own so...thus it's here! If you'd already read and reviewed this, re-reviews would be nice if you care to do. =-)**

****o.o.o.o

All she wanted was a freaking pudding cup. And to find out where that pancake smell was coming from.

So of course when she got to the kitchen, Wally was there.

When the hell _wasn't _he in the kitchen?

She couldn't believe her luck. She huffed and sighed and rolled her eyes and was about to turn back the way she'd come, because conversing with Wally was the _last _thing she wanted to do at midnight. Or at any time, really, considering...

"Artemis?"

Great. Just great. He'd seen her.

She twisted back around to face him. Her jaw nearly hit the floor at the stack of pancakes piled high on the saucer in his hands. Closing her mouth and frowning, she peered about the room.

"Artemis?" Kid asked again, raising one of his eyebrows. "What are you doing?"

"Just looking..."

"For what?"

"The army you're about to feed."

"Oh, ha-ha, you slay me," he said in a very sarcastic tone as he rolled his eyes. He sat the plate down on the table and took a seat. As she had expected, the flat brown slabs of batter towered above his head.

She stared in silence for a moment. This was it, her one chance to dart out of the room while his vision was obscured by a pillar of maple-y goodness. Her one chance to avoid talking about what had happened between them earlier...her one chance to eat a Snack Cup.

Curse this midnight craving!

Swallowing her pride, she marched past the gluttonous speedster, who had already demolished almost half the pancakes, and strode right up to the refrigerator. She opened it.

There was only one left.

Chocolate Snack Cup.

_Hell yes._

She tore that sucker open and grabbed a spoon. The first bite was like pure, chocolate-y heaven.

A loud belch snapped her out of bliss.

Wally took his plate to the sink. There wasn't even a crumb left, just the sticky remains of syrup. She shook her head in absolute disbelief.

"Wally, you are just _disgusting_!"

Seriously, how the hell? Where did it all go? Did he even breath between bites?

She shoved another spoonful of choco delight into her mouth.

"Funny. You didn't seem to think I was disgusting when you had your lips all over me this morning."

Her eyes widened. She sucked pudding down the wrong way and spluttered, coughing and hacking, eyes watering. This was exactly the kind of scenario she could've avoided, if only her brain hadn't been insisting she _needed _a Snack Cup at midnight or she would die.

Once she got her breathing under control, she dared to chance a sideways glance at him. He had a smug smirk on his face.

_Asshole._

Now her brain was nagging viciously at her to come up with something, some kind of lie to tell him, an excuse for why she had temporarily lost her mind and thus made out with him against the wall of the training room. Roughly.

Heat flooded her cheeks.

For once in her life, she had no idea what to say to Wally West.

So she simply shoved more pudding into her mouth until it was all gone.

She heard him make some kind of amused sound, and then suddenly his hand was forcing her face in his direction, and she hurried to swallow the pudding because some part of her just _knew _what he was doing. And then their lips collided in the strangest combination of maple syrup and Snack Cup flavor she had ever tasted.

It tastedpretty damn good.

It was nowhere near the intensity of their earlier kisses, and in no time he had pulled back.

There was some chocolate on his lip.

They stared at each other.

And stared.

And stared.

And finally, she calmly put her spoon in the sink, tossed her pudding cup in the trash and made her way to the exit.

But of course she had to have the last say in the matter.

"Wally?"

"Yeah, beautiful?"

She smirked.

"See you at training practice tomorrow, asshole."


	8. Hypothetical

**Diclaimer- I do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters!**

**Title: Hypothetical**

**Genre: Romance (it's sexy AND fluffy!)**

**Rating: Strongly T (for some very sexual stuff. It's nothing bad enough to be M rated.)**

**Promptee: Myself!I hope I didn't get their personalities off on this one. They're older and so I tried to make them seem older but without getting rid of the personalities we all know and love! I did this because I wanted to try something fluffier for them(and of course sexy, because when it comes to Spitfire I just can't help myself!)**

o.o.o.o

"Well c'mon, get in."

"Will you give me a second? It hurts like hell."

"Maybe if you hadn't jumped off that roof..."

"Maybe if you shut up about it and scoot back so I have some room."

"If I scoot back anymore I'll be in the floor!"

She shot him a good natured smirk as she limped gingerly toward the tub. He reached up and grabbed her hand, holding her steady as she placed her sprained ankle into the pleasantly warm water. A sigh of contentment left her lips at the touch of the soothing waters. Before she could make another move, however, Wally had grown impatient. He stood up, water cascading down his torso, and lifted her bodily from the tiled floor to place her in the tub.

"Why didn't you just do that in the first place?" she chided as Wally placed his back against the lip of the basin and pulled her against him. She felt the air displaced as he snorted into her hair.

"Because _somebody _was being stubborn. _Somebody _didn't want me "fussing" over her ankle, and _somebody _wanted to get into the bathtub by herself."

Artemis punched him lightly on the shoulder, then leaned back comfortably against his broad chest. She could feel his fingers running through her hair and let her eyes flutter shut.

"This feels nice."

"You know what else feels nice?"

Her eyes snapped open and she turned to look at him, an unamused expression plastered to her face.

"Wally. _No._"

He looked at her innocently, but she damn well knew better.

"I wasn't suggesting sex!"

Her eyes narrowed. His mouth split into a wide grin.

"Okay, maybe I was. Just a little."

Instead of retorting, her fingers suddenly drifted to his lower lip.

"You split your lip back open."

He grabbed her wrist and pulled it away, licking experimentally at the fresh drops of blood welling on the crack there. Then he laughed and looked at her with a 'really?' kind of look.

"Your ankle is sprained, you have a black eye, and _you're _worried about my split lip that, by the way, will be completely healed and gone within the next hour or so?"

"It won't if you keep grinning like an idiot and re-opening it!" she snapped, turning away from him again. She could feel the deep rumble of barely surpressed laughter and rolled her eyes, though couldn't stop herself from smiling.

"You're such a spitfire," he told her affectionately, resting his chin on the top of her skull. Her lips curled upward.

"So I've been told."

There was a moment of silence and she could literally _feel _his hesitancy in the way he tensed.

"Artemis-"

"Shh, Wally. Just relax...it's been a long day."

He let out a great sigh and they slipped deeper into the heated water.

She took comfort in the feel of his lithe runner's body against her, his sculpted legs intwined with hers. Years ago, if anyone had told her she would be naked in a bathtub with Wally West and _enjoy _it, she would've decked them.

It was funny how fast feelings could change.

Artemis was just getting comfy, perhaps even enough to fall asleep after their perilous day of crime fighting, when...

"My arm is falling asleep."

"Mmm. Too bad. I don't feel like moving."

So, of course, he grabbed her shoulders and shifted her himself.

"You know, I've been thinking," he said abruptly, one of his large hands sliding beneath the water and down until it rested just beneath her breast.

"About?" Artemis asked lazily, not even bothering to open an eye.

"Well, let's just say, hypothetically, that I decided I wanted to ask you to marry me."

Wally asked her this in a completely calm voice, his one free hand casually twirling a few strands of her damp locks between it's fingers. She ignored the one wild, completely out of wack pound her heart gave and continued the conversation just as passively.

"What, hypothetically, are you getting at?"

"I've come to the conclusion that I would receive one of two answers from you."

"And what would those answers be?"

Her steely eyes were open now. She was pretty sure she could feel his heart beating erratically beneath her, or was that her own? Nah, definitely Wally's. This sort of behavior was far too girly for Artemis. What the hell did she care if Wally asked her to marry him? It was all hypothetical, he'd said it himself...and yet, she knew him better.

"You would either say yes. Or you would say hell no and kick me where the sun doesn't shine."

He stated this so matter-of-factly that she erupted into laughter.

"You're so full of it! I wouldn't kick you!"

"But you would say hell no."

She noticed a sort of dejected tone to his voice.

Feeling suddenly fiesty, a side effect of the extra blood her capricious heart had sent pumping through her veins, no doubt, she worked her way away from him and flipped over, careful of her injured ankle. Water sloshed out everywhere and he yelped, surprised, as she straddled his waist.

She grinned wickedly.

"Let's just say, _hypothetically_, that I decided to say yes."

Wally swallowed, staring up at her.

"Then I would, hypothetically of course, probably be the happiest speedster on the face of this planet."

She wasn't afraid or angry of the way her heart throbbed this time, because she knew his probably was too, and well, that was a-okay. Because she was pretty sure that Wally West and Artemis Crock had just agreed to marry each other.

Laughing, she clamped her thighs around his own and grinded roughly against his hips. He moaned and his cheeks flushed.

"Let's also say, hypothetically, that I decided we should have sex."

"Then I'd be hypothetically _okay with that!_"


	9. A Change of Tact

**Disclaimer- I do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Title: A Change of Tact**

**Characters/pairings: Wally/Artemis, Miss Martian**

**Genre: Romance/Humor**

**Rating: T**

**Promptee: Youngtitan213, aka she who makes amazing Young Justice music videos! She prompted, "Artemis losing her voice, due to a cold xD"**

**o.o.o.o**

"Recognized. Kid Flash. B03."

It was a glorious Saturday afternoon at Mount Justice. Wally swaggered in with his usual bravado, intent on dragging his friends out into the sunshine for a well-deserved day of play. Perhaps he'd make them repay him for that day they hit the beaches while he was stuck in school? Or they could hit the amusement park on the pier. Or go surfing, or...

Well, all of this would make much more sense if anyone was actually _at _Mount Justice.

"Uh... oookay," he mumbled, scratching at his unruly hair as he took in the empty cavern. Shrugging, thinking they must be in another room, he put on a zip of speed and arrived a second later at the workout room.

Nothing.

Their "rooms".

Nada.

Feeling a little agitated, he at last came to the tv/kitchen area.

Where he found a strange sight.

He caught the ending beep of a microwave, saw M'gann pulling a steaming bowl from within it as she levitated a spoon over from the silverware drawer. She blew at the contents gently and glided over to the couch, and it was only at that moment Wally realized Artemis was there, too.

She looked like shit.

And he didn't mean that in an insulting way.

The blonde archer was curled up on the edge of the sofa, a cozy looking blanket wrapped around her limbs, and despite the 80 degree weather outside, she was shivering. She sneezed violently, coughed and peeled her tired eyes open as Megan approached. Her face turned a little sour and she shook her head at the bowl Megan was offering her.

Miss M sighed, then she looked up and spotted Wally.

"Hello, Wally," she greeted, pulling her lips into a smile.

"Hey, Megalicious," he replied, though his eyes remain trained on the less-than-super looking Artemis, his hands shoved in his pockets. "What's with her?"

Artemis shot him a glare that probably would've been more menacing if not for her sickly appearance. And the fact that she dissolved into a fit of coughs soon after.

Megan gave her a sympathetic look and set the still steaming bowl on the table before answering Wally.

"She's sick, but she won't take anything I offer..."

Artemis opened her mouth to speak, but only a faint, indiscernible rasp came out. She cleared her throat, started to try again, only to have the speedster hold out his hand to stop her. He looked at Megan, smirking.

"She hasn't spoken to you?"

Megan shook her head, looking a little confused. Wally nodded knowingly.

"Tell you what, green-cheeks. I got this, you go do... whatever."

"Are you sure, Wally? I think-"

"No problem! I _totally _know how to take care of this."

The martian was a bit reluctant to leave, but after a moment nodded and floated soundlessly from the area.

Leaving Wally and a very sick Artemis alone.

Wally plopped down on the couch next to her. There was a long, drawn out silence in which he twiddled his thumbs in his lap and stared blankly at the blackened TV screen.

Then he looked over with a big, wide smile on his face and saw that she was giving him a look, one that just screamed, _Touch me and you die._

But was he going to let that stop him from taking advantage of this absolutely perfect opportunity? Hell no!

He siddled across the couch until his hip was touching hers, put his arm behind her...

"Wally, I swear..." Artemis managed to grate out in a voice barely above a whisper. Wally feigned deaf, leaning toward her and cupping one hand around his ear.

"What's that, Arty? You're going to have to speak louder."

She made a very convincing growl noise and tugged the blanket up over her face. He wiggled like an excited five year old, trying and failing to contain his snickers of mirth.

Then he really slipped into 'annoying little kid' mode.

"Hey, Artemis, are you going to eat that soup?"

"..."

"Artemis, why won't you look at me?"

"..."

"Did you lay out of school today, young lady?"

"..."

"I'm just going to eat this soup myself, then."

"..."

"Hey, Artemis, wanna watch TV?"

"..."

Soup bowl in one hand, he picked up the remote and flipped the tube on. This turned out to be a mistake, because the television wasn't on it's usual quiet 'No Signal' menu, but instead on some stupid channel with a dumb monster truck rally going on, and the volume was so loud that it rattled the walls of the Mount and scared both himself and the sickly girl out of their wits. In his haste to get the volume down, Wally dropped the hot soup onto the carpet as he pounded the minus button on the remote.

Finally, things became tranquil again, the low buzz of the tv now a soothing background noise. He shot Artemis a semi-apologetic look to where her eyes were peaking over the blanket in a homicidal death gaze.

Wally acted as if nothing happened, swinging his legs up to accommodate the empty space on the couch.

"Sooo... Tv?"

"..."

"You're not going to talk to me?"

"..."

He scowled. It was much harder to keep his annoy-the-shit-out-of-sickly-Artemis charade up when she wouldn't even rise to the bait!

So instead he lapsed into a moody silence, stuffing himself into the corner of the couch as he idly flipped through all 300 channels.

With a running commentary, of course.

"Seen it. Seen it. Little kid's show. Lame horror movie with crappy effects. Info-mercials. Animal channel is booo-ooo-oring! You've seen a cheetah chase down an gazelle and devour it once, you've seen it a million times!"

Unbeknownst to Wally, Artemis's face turned an unhealthy shade of green at his Animal Planet comment.

"Seen it. Saw it in theaters, sucked. Lifetime movie? I don't think so. Heeeeey..."

Some kind of romance flick, and it looked like things are getting a little hot. Wally waggled his eyebrows in the archer's direction and scooted next to her, wrapping an arm around her tensed shoulders. She looked more ill than ever, but he paid no heed.

"Isn't this romantic, beautiful? I-"

He suddenly choked on his own spit and scrambled for the remote, because that romance movie had turned into a sex scene, and normally he wouldn't care but something disturbed him about hearing sexual moans when he was sitting on a couch, alone, with _Artemis_. He hit the mute button in record timing and breathed a sigh of relief, ignoring the flush in his cheeks.

"Uh... heh... guess there's nothing on TV today!"

Wally zipped from the couch suddenly, then returned five seconds later with a board game in his hand.

"Monopoly, Artemis?"

She didn't answer, but this time it was not out of spite. This time it was because her face was pale and sweaty, and she barely glanced at the speedster before she was off the couch and skidding down the nearest hallway.

Wally was extremely confused until he heard the sound of throwing up. Dropping the game to the floor, he put on a burst of speed and found her in the nearest bathroom, heaving violently into the bowl. Frowning, he crouched down and scooped up all of her loose blonde hair into his hand, holding it back while she continued to be sick.

And now... now he had a huge creature called guilt gnawing ravenously at his insides. Here he had been acting like a complete douche just to get some laughes and annoy her, and it turned out she'd had more than just a simple cold.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Time for a change of tact.

He waited until she was finished, let her rinse her mouth out with mouth wash and without any warning, scooped her into his arms and took her back to the couch. She was feeling so shitty that she didn't even protest as he deposited her. In yet another show of speed, he reappeared with a bucket and placed it near the edge of the cushions.

Wally cleaned the soup and bowl from the ruined carpet, then unceremoniously flopped down in one corner of the sofa. He pulled Artemis to him, blanket and all, and let her rest her head and upper body against him. This time she tried to say something, but it was no use.

"Hush up, Artemis, and go to sleep."

He meant for it to come out harsh, just to show her that he didn't really give a damn one way or another, but he failed and it came out in a... well, soft and meaningful tone. He cringed, expecting her to punch him in the arm or something, but upon looking down found her eyes closed and her breathing steady.

He couldn't help it: he smiled affectionately. Because, _damn her_, somewhere along the line this girl had grown on him and weedled her way to some spot in his heart. He wasn't sure what exactly that spot was, and he didn't care enough to delve too deeply into the matter.

So instead he turned the TV to some random station and kept the volume low, and before he knew it he'd dozed off with his cheek pressed against her bedraggled hair.

Needless to say, Robin had a field day when the team found them that way an hour later.


	10. Her Own Hero

**Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Title: Her Own Hero**

**Characters/pairings: Artemis Crock, Wally/Artemis if you squint**

**Genre: Angst**

**Rating: T**

**Promptee: Done for day one's prompt of the December Drabble-thon on Tumblr! I am forever enamored with the idea/headcanon of Artemis having admired and/or crushed on Kid Flash when she was younger. In fact, I thought, well….just read. ;) Ah, also profuse apologies to my loverly Satellites on Parade, I think some of her headcanon for Artemis' past may have attached to my brain.**

**Quote for the Drabble-thon prompt was: **

_I'm the hero of the story; I don't need to be saved._

**— Regina Spektor, "Hero"**

o.o.o.o

_**Eleven years old**_

**o.o**

Her face hurts.

She kneels in the center of the room on her knees, between her own bed and the one where Jade used to sleep. Delicate flaxen wisps of hair hang loose from her ponytail, tickling her nose incessantly as she stares blankly at the wooden floor. She ignores them, her body focused only on the stinging pain of her throbbing cheek.

Dad backhanded her earlier during her training. Said she was weak, weak like one of those do-gooders on the TV. So he'd backhanded her, and like a good little student she'd bit back the tears even as the left side of her face ached and swelled her eye shut.

Now she is alone, perfectly entitled to letting hot teardrops seep from her lashes and roll down to the floor with soft patters.

But she doesn't.

Because she is Artemis Crock, and according to Daddy, Crocks don't cry.

Her fists clench in her lap. One strap of her overalls hangs down against her bare arm, cold and cool, so she lifts it away and presses it to her bruise; she doesn't dare go into the kitchen for ice. She sighs with relief as some of the pain is leeched from the abrasion.

She loves her dad. She does...or did.

She doesn't even know anymore. He's always been tough to live with, never been very loving, or caring, or nice...but he's taught her how to be tough, how to take care of herself, and even several ways to dislocate some one's shoulder, or where to put pressure on a human's neck so they pass out.

He's even teaching her how to kill.

Her small frame shudders. She doesn't want to kill people. It's wrong, it's _so_ wrong and she doesn't understand why Daddy wants her to prepare to do it...but prepare she does. She's asked him why she needs to train for death and stealth and combat, but all he says it that it'll keep her from winding up the same way as Mom.

And until today, Artemis has accepted that answer.

But not anymore..

Today Daddy dealt the blow that was her final straw.

She'll continue to train with him, oh yes. She has no say in this particular matter. She'll continue enduring his jabs and his insults and his coaxing attempts to get her to punch him harder, or kick the training dummy higher, or hold her fists in the correct way when fighting.

But now she'll train on her own, too, in secret and on her own time. She'll hone her skills with weapon she loves most in Dad's arsenal: the bow. Dad thought the bow was impractical, thought she'd be better off using anything else from the weapons he'd shown her.

But Artemis had felt something click for the brief moment she'd held that bow in her hand. She _wanted_ to learn the ways of archery.

So she would.

Artemis drops the bit of metal away from her cheek and gets to her feet. She pads softly out of the moonlight stretching across the floor on the way to the closet and flings the door open with force when she arrives.

It's empty, save for two things.

The first is the bow and a quiver of arrows. She nicked them one day after a grueling session with Daddy. He had about a hundred of the stupid things and about twice as many arrows, so he wouldn't miss them. She's stashed them in the grubby little space until she's ready, or has the guts, to pull them out.

The other object is a stuffed animal. It's fat and covered in dirt and paint and food, and it's fur is sticking up all over the place. A leering smile of white stands out in the darkness where it rests up on the shelf.

A stuffed Chesire cat.

Her jaw sets in a grim line at the sight, agonizing memories flooding her brain. She remembers very clearly the night her sister left her, little over a year ago. First mom went to jail and they were left alone with dad, but Artemis hadn't been so terrified with big sister Jade there to protect her, to keep her company. But then Jade had left too, gone to find a rabbit hole to tumble down, leaving Artemis all alone with no one but their hard ass and intimidating dad to look up to.

Well, at least_ some _good has come of being abandoned by everyone but Daddy.

She's resilient now. She doesn't rely on Jade anymore. No, she knows how to take care of herself, how to stay strong. She can hold back tears from the worst pain imaginable, and she knows how to incapacitate a grown man by kicking his kneecaps in.

Artemis is a survivor.

Her steely eyes harden as she snatches up the bow and quiver, slamming the door on the creepily grinning stuffed toy that tears at her heart a little each time she looks at it.

It's time to take matters into her own hands.

o.o.o.o

_**Thirteen years old**_

_**o.o**_

Artemis knows now.

She's knows why she's been training, why her fingers are calloused and bloody from so much practice with the bow.

It's not to kill, not to take other people's lives or to protect her own.

Moist pink tongue sticks from between her pursed lips as she works. The adolescent sits indian style on the faded purple sheets stretched flat across the mattress, struggling feverishly with the tattered old white sock in her fingers. She's attacking it haphazardly with a pair of scissors, snipping away two ragged holes directly in the center where she marked with a permanent marker.

For years Dad had drilled a villainous mode of thinking into her impressionable young head, but she's thirteen now and she's long since known that the things she's being taught are not meant to be used for the right reasons; Dad would have her steal, have her lie and cheat and _murder_ for things in life.

But Artemis will have no part of it.

Artemis wants to be a hero.

A hero like Kid Flash.

She'd seen him on the news for the first time a week ago, and again not even thirty minutes prior to her mutilation of the musty sock.

He'd been standing side-by-side with the Flash, looking flustered and overwhelmed at the crowds of adoring citizens as they praised him and his mentor for stopping the bad guy. He'd almost looked a little scared with all the attention at first, but by the end of it he'd been standing proudly, a glint in the emerald eyes visible through the holes on his mask.

Artemis had been enthralled.

He looked so young. He looked _her_ age, and he was helping make a difference.

_She _wanted to make a difference. She didn't want to be one of the people causing problems in the world, she wanted to be among those stopping them. Just watching the Flash and his handsome new sidekick getting recognized as heroes for their good deeds had set her blood pounding through her veins, had drawn her across the room until her eyes were almost stuck to the flickering piece of junk that was her television.

She _wants_ that.

And it isn't the fame that is so tantalizing, it's the sheer prospect of even _daring_ to deny becoming what her father has tried so hard to make her into.

With one final snip, the archer-in-training pops up from the bed and ties the badly homemade 'mask' over her eyes. The holes are a little crooked and off center, but she can still see her reflection in the mirror as she surveys herself, imagining a much more confident and older looking Artemis standing triumphant against the enemy, a perfectly badass mask hiding her true identity from those who would seek to hurt her.

Yeah. That's it.

She _will_ be a hero.

And not only will she use her skills to save others, she'll be the hero of her own story. It's time for her to take matters into her own, capable hands.

She doesn't need saving. She'll help herself.

And it doesn't matter that a few years later, when she finally breaks free from her dad's sinister grip and falls headfirst into the most wonderful rabbit hole she could've possibly imagined, that she must always grudgingly thank her dad for the things he taught her. It doesn't matter that Kid Flash turns out to not be the young man she admired on the news(he's arrogant and brash and rude and so full of himself, and she _hates_ his stupid little freckles and his silly red hair). It doesn't matter that she can't tell her new family about her _real _family.

None of that matters, because she is Artemis Crock, and she is the hero of her own story.


	11. Dear Agony

**Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Title: **Dear Agony

**Characters/pairings: **Wally West (Spitfire if you squint)

**Genre: **Angst/Tragedy

**Rating: **K+

**Notes: **I don't even know where this came from. I decided I wanted to write a fic solely for Wally, since I've had _The Assassin, An Unlucky Arrow, _and _Her Own Hero _for Artemis. This is the first of hopefully a few more Wally-centric fics. I hate that this first one is so…sad, but I just got the idea and couldn't let it go.

o.o.o.o

_Dear Agony_

_Just let go of me_

_Suffer slowly_

_Is this the way it's got to be?_

**~Dear Agony, Breaking Benjamin**

He remembers receiving a blow to the head.

Remembers blood dripping down into his eyes, obscuring his vision.

But then there was only hard, cold concrete, his aching cheek resting against it, his body completely drained of energy.

His hands are bound behind his back. He can't imagine why, because he can't even will himself to do anything anyway.

There's a pounding in his skull like no other, one of his eyes is caked shut with dried blood, and he can't feel one of his legs.

He doesn't even know where he's at, doesn't recall how he got here or why he's being...held captive.

Yes.

That's one thing he knows for certain. He's being held captive, and he's pretty sure he also remembers something about...Sportsmaster?

He groans, shifts lightly against the floor until something wet is all over his face. He doesn't care about what it might be. He's more concerned with the gnawing hunger in his belly. One of the many drawbacks of being himself, being a speedster, is that insatiable appetite. He knows it can't have been more than a few hours, yet he feels as though he's been starved for days.

A sharp pain in the leg he couldn't feel moments ago stirs him enough to cry out hoarsely. It hurts, hurts worse than his head, but he's still too tired, too weak and sore to bend himself far enough to see the damage. Even if he weren't so hungry and low on energy, he's pretty sure his speedy healing wouldn't be much use to these particular wounds.

Hair tickles his forehead and panic strikes through his heart. His identity has surely been jeopardized. He's not sure what a nutcase like Sportsmaster would do with such information, but it can't be much worse than the position he's already in, which is little comfort.

Wally fades in and out of consciousness several times, at some point hears a kind of ruckus a few levels above his cell or...where ever the hell he's being kept at. He blacks out again, but the next time he awakens he's graced with the wonderful sight of his teammates.

He's pretty sure he smiles dopely at them, says something about them _finally_ getting their asses in gear to save him as Robin hacks away at his bonds with a birdarang. He fails to notice the somber looks on The Boy Wonder and Superboy's faces as they hoist him between them, or the stiff line of Kaldur's mouth, or the tear stains on M'gann's cheeks, or the broken green bow she's clutching in her fragile looking fists.

It takes him a few moments to even register the absence of the archer.

He asks them. His brain is still so very muddled, but he's pretty positive that he asks them where Artemis is. Pretty sure he asks them again and again and again, his voice slurred beyond all recognition as his feet drag across the floor between them.

They never answer.

So he simply gives up, because he's tired, and he hurts, and he just can't be asked to focus anymore. He slips off into the sweet abyss of unconsciousness, and when he next wakes he's in the Mount Justice infirmary.

Wally's alert now, and he's so excruciatingly aware that he still can't feel his right leg, that his forehead is swathed in bandages and that his stomach is surely digesting itself.

But the first thing he does is turn to Robin, who is sitting calmly in a chair next to the sickbed, and ask about Artemis, because he remembers that no one answered his question. The pained look on Robin's face makes his heart ache with dread, and that dread turns into shear agony when he removes his sunglasses and looks Wally straight in the eye, and tells him.

Tells him..._tells him_...

Wally's anguished cries are heard echoing throughout the Mount without end, until finally the pain meds kick in and he has no choice but to surrender to sleep.

_She's gone, Wally..._


	12. All in a Day's Work

**Title: **All in a Day's Work

**Characters/pairings: **Wally/Artemis (Spitfire)

**Genre: **Humor

**Rating:** K+

**Notes: **A BIG THANKS TO MY LOVER, Satellites on Parade for going through and correcting my mistakes and pretty much giving me the ending to this pointless fic! 333 I honestly have no clue where this came from, I just had this idea of Wally and Artemis consuming mass amounts of chili fries together after a mission…LOL, wut?

**o.o.o.o**

Everyone is staring.

It's the most unusual sight the little restaurant has probably ever seen.

Their outfits are ripped to shreds and covered in dirt and flecks of blood. One of the glass pieces of his goggles is busted out, leaving jagged edges, and the left portion of his mask has been ripped away, which probably isn't the greatest thing in the world, what with trying to hide his identity. But he couldn't care less, because he's busy shoveling piles of chili fries into his gullet as fast as he can without vomiting.

She is eating with just as much gusto, her cheeks packed with fries and burger and milkshake. Her glove is missing and there's a cut on her face and one of the straps of her quiver has been cut in half so she's removed it and leaned it against her chair, still full to the brim with arrows. She's pretty sure that normally they wouldn't allow any sort of weapons inside, but everyone appears too shocked by the sudden appearance of two masked teen heroes ordering everything off the menu.

"Are you gonna eat that?"

"What kind of dumb question is _that_? Of course I'm eating it!"

"You have fifteen orders of chili fries, Kid Bottomless Pit! Give me one."

"No way, I got a bloody nose in that fight, so you can just back off! _Hey_!"

She's skillfully shot her hand out and snatched away one of the soggy cardboard boxes full of crisp potato wedges coated in mind-numbingly delicious cheese and chili. Wally scowls as if she's insulted him and quickly pulls the remaining delicacies closer to his body.

Artemis rolls her eyes at him, swallowing thickly.

"You're pathetic."

"You're a chili fry stealer!"

"Whatever."

They lapse back into silence, hardly breathing. Artemis has never been so hungry in her life, never thought she'd be sitting at a table with Wally West, for once in her life not the least bit disgusted with his eating habits. In fact she's quite thankful for them tonight, otherwise she wouldn't have all these fries to pilfer.

She's aware that civilians are still gawking, or else trying and failing to act casual. She has to admit it's kind of amusing, and when she draws her steely eyes up to Kid's, sees that he's eyeing her as well, a smirk plastered across his face. She grins back.

"You'd think these people'd never seen a couple of starving heroes." he comments in a low voice, momentarily slowing down his food intake.

"They probably think we feed off of _justice_, instead of food."

Wally snorts obnoxiously and they both erupt into peels of laughter, heedless of the way every single head turns toward them as if they're a pack of wolves that's startled a herd of caribou.

They quiet down and go back to eating, but out of the corner of her eye, Artemis can suddenly see cell phones being drawn forth. Pictures are snapped. She clears her throat and looks up at Wally, suddenly realizing how small their table is, how close their heads are if they both bow to sip at their drinks simultaneously.

"Hey."

"Mmmfff?" he asks as he lifts up, crumbs spraying from his lips. The archer jerks her head to the side, toward a man unabashedly taking pictures. He's not even trying to hide it. In fact, he's standing up, maneuvering around to try and get a better angle.

Wally scoffs.

"Bats will kill us for this."

"I'm more worried about the headlines we'll be seeing in the paper tomorrow morning," she says, stuffing more fries into her mouth.

"Oh, right. 'Kid Flash seen with fledgling heroine, Artemis. Are they dating?'"

Artemis nearly sucks an entire fry down her wind pipe and splutters, taking an emergency drink of her chocolate shake lest she find her obituary in the Sunday paper instead. Death by french fry.

She shoots him a glare.

"If that happens I'll burn every news stand I pass by."

"Pfff, you got that right!" He takes an enormous bite from the cheeseburger she doesn't even remember him ordering, chewing garishly. "I can barely stand working on the same _team _as you, much less swapping spit."

"Feeling's mutual."

"Good."

"Fine."

She chucks a fry at him and it lands inside the smashed out goggle on his forehead. Instead of reacting in a hostile way, he simply removes and eats it.

By now Artemis has had her fill, so she leans back in her seat to sleepily finish off her shake. Her muscles ache and she wants nothing more than to get home and take a long, hot shower before flopping into bed. Her eyes close pleasantly at the thought, but then she suddenly gets the feeling that she's being watched.

"Pssst!"

She snaps her head up, raising one eyebrow at Wally's whisper. His eyes are... narrowed, but not at her. He's looking over her shoulder, so she twists in her seat to follow his line of sight.

There's a guy sitting in the booth behind her.

A _cute _guy.

He's looking right at her, straight in the eye, and she can't help it. She shoots him a saucy grin and winks. The guy gives her a smile, but before she can react further there's suddenly a tremendous yank on her shoulder and Wally has forced her eyes back on him.

He looks livid.

"What are you _doing_?"

She purses her lips at him.

"Whatever I want, Kid Idiot."

"He's a _civilian_! You can't flirt with him! He's probably one of the losers snapping our picture!"

Artemis' mouth gapes open. She can barely find the words to even begin with her retort.

"I... _you_... you are the biggest hypocrite! You flirt with everything in a skirt, _including _civilians!"

Kid starts to reply hotly but stops, his eyes widening. She notices his eyes flit above her head, and tilts her head back in curiosity.

It's the cute guy.

He's even cuter up close, and she _likes _it.

"Hey, there," says the guy, and he's got this husky voice that's quite nice. "I'm sorry if I'm, ah, intruding... but, uh, are you two... involved?"

Artemis opens her mouth to say "Hell, no!" but before she can, Wally has zipped over next to the guy in a burst of air that sends everyone's napkins flying across the room haphazardly. She's infuriated with his intrusion, is on the verge of politely telling him to screw off when—

"Yes! Yep, we are involved!" he says it loud enough for the whole eating establishment to hear. His cheeks are a bit flushed and so is hers as soon as she processes what he's just said. She can't even begin to fathom what her horrified face must look like in that moment.

"_Kid, what are you_—"

"Shhh, I got this, babe," he whispers to her with a wink. Then he's back at full volume. "I, the devilishly handsome Kid Flash, am romantically involved with Artemis! We're on a date right now, in fact, and we'd really appreciate it if you could all just give us some space!"

The guy looks a little put out for a moment, then he shrugs and walks back over to his seat, hands in his pockets. The stunned silence slowly turns into excited chatter as Wally struts back to his chair, looking very proud of himself.

Artemis is pretty sure her face is twitching.

"What... what did you just... _why_? Why the hell did you do that! I thought you could barely stand being on the same team as me! What happened to _that_?"

Wally's got this stupid smirk on his face, and Artemis clenches her fists, sitting on them because she doesn't trust herself to not reach for an arrow from her quiver and stab him with it.

The speedster's about to answer her demands when the waitress bustles up with the bill, looking like she's just seen one of those corny little teeny bopper romance movies. Artemis half-expects her to burst into elated tears.

_Gag_.

"You two are _so _cute!" she gushes, turning her attention to Wally, specifically. "That was the sweetest thing!"

Wally gives her a winning smile and waggles his eyebrows.

"All in a day's work!"

"Oh, _give me a break_!" Artemis grounds out with disdain. "We are _not_—"

"She's so modest!" Wally cuts across her loudly, and she can hear some of the people in the booths around them tittering. It's mortifying, and she sinks down into her chair, wishing she could just disappear and hide her heated cheeks from sight.

He chats it up with the waitress for a few moments, and starts digging in his pockets for money once she's gone. He counts out a few bills and some coins.

"Don't worry, I got the bill, beautiful."

Her body relaxes, anger momentarily forgotten as she sits up straight, genuinely confused.

"Wally, you can stop pretending we're dating. It's okay, I'll pay for mysel—"

"Who said I was pretending?"


	13. Insatiable Wally

**Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice nor any of it's charatcers.**

**Title: **Insatiable Wally

**Characters/pairings: **Wally West

**Genre: **Humor

**Rating: **K

**Promptee:** Myself!Takes place during _Downtime. _This is actually a personal Wally headcanon of mine. I like to think that Mrs. West made Wally go buy more ice cream after he devoured that entire tub! XD This is also really pointless, just good fun!

**o.o.o**

Look, it wasn't _his _fault he had a super fast metabolism.

It also wasn't his fault that the chocolate ice cream had been so deliciously tantalizing. It had just been sitting there in the freezer waiting to be eaten, and well, Wally West wasn't one for letting perfectly good food go to waste. Plus, three plates of Aunt Iris' dinner? Please, that was a snack.

He couldn't honestly say he regretted his spur-of-the-moment decision; the ice cream was _amazing_. Cool, smooth, creamy and flavored with the best possible chocolate in all of Central City. His _only _regret was that he'd eaten it far too fast and not had the chance to properly savor it.

"_Wally_!"

Uh-oh. Now _that _made him sorely sorry for his ransacking of the freezer.

After a nice stern chewing out from his mother(complete with smirks and head shakes from Iris and Uncle Barry in the background), Wally had been forced to head into town to purchase a new tub of the frozen treat.

He stopped halfway down the sidewalk and grumbled , shooting a hateful glance back toward the house and it's occupants.

"You march down to that store and buy more ice cream, Wally!" he mocked in a shrill voice, pulling a pair of shiny red goggles from his pants pocket and placing them over his eyes. "And that carton had better still be sealed when you get back, do you understand?"

The speedster checked the surrounding area for passersby before zipping off in a burst of speed and air.

"Yeah, _mom_, I understand. I understand that _you _still don't keep enough food in the house, and neither does Uncle Barry!"

His words were lost in the wind, punctuated by his growling stomach.

Never satisfied, no matter how much he ate.

Wally came to a skidding stop in a deserted alley next to the food store, his breath just as even as if he had strolled leisurely the whole way. He used his shirt to wipe away some bug guts from the right glass piece of his goggles and pocketed them before walking out into the sun.

**o.o.o**

So many choices!

Chocolate, vanilla, mint chocolate, strawberry, cookies n' cream, cookie dough, sherbert, turtle tracks, pistachio, those little ice cream sandwiches...

Wally was _drooling_, hands pressed flat against the glass doors protecting the ice cream. From the moment he'd walked into the building he'd been reminded of how much he _hated _going to the grocery store. All that food, all those smells, but only enough cash to buy a few things... it was pure torture. His mom knew he hated going to the store; this must have been punishment for his devouring of the chocolate ice cream.

'_Focus, Wallman, focus', _he mentally chided, but it did little good to placate is salivary glands. _'I have enough money for three tubs here... Chocolate to replace the one I ate, and the other two are fair game...'_

This wasn't strictly true. Jay had requested mint chocolate and Uncle Barry was quite fond of turtle tracks, but Wally wasn't beyond feigning deafness at their suggestions at his expense.

But what flavors to get, then?

Maybe vanilla. No, strawberry. No-

"Excuse me, please."

Wally unstuck his face from the glass and looked over at a young woman with a completely empty buggy.

"Yeah, sorry," he mumbled, and gestured at the ice cream as he took a few steps back.

The woman smiled and pushed her cart over, opening the doors so that wafts of ice cold air bit into Wally's warm skin. He watched her under the pretense of perusing waffles in the next freezer over, and felt his eyes begin to go wide at the sheer amount of frozen dairy product she was tossing into her buggy. By the time she was done, he was pretty sure there were nearly twenty cartons full of the stuff in there.

He couldn't help himself, cleared his throat.

"Um... big party?" he asked impudently, rubbing at the back of his neck with a small smile. She looked confused for a moment, then looked down at her buggy and started to laugh.

"Oh! Yeah, big college shindig," she told him, then lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Some of this ice cream is for me, though. Don't tell anyone!"

That was when, of course, Wally being Wally, realized that this was a college girl. A _hot _college girl, who probably wasn't interested in gangly fifteen year-old boys with overactive metabolisms.

He straightened himself up, puffed out his chest just a bit, and made sure his voice was nice and deep sounding.

"Don't worry, babe, your secret's safe with me."

Great, his voice had cracked on that last bit! He deflated immediately, frowning at the girl's giggling laughter.

_'So much for that...'_

For all that was worth he might as well have been hitting on Artemis. Or a telephone pole.

"What about you? You buying... ah, waffles?" the girl asked, leaning slightly to look at the products.

"Oh, no. I, uh... need ice cream. For a party. Birthday." he murmured, still feeling quite put out and embarrassed at his failed attempt to pick up a chick. Not that it was an uncommon thing. He'd been turned down more times than he cared to remember.

Such was the life of a flirty speedster!

"That's cool," said the girl, turning her cart away and bumping the door closed with her hip. "It was nice talking to you, but I've gotta get this ice cream home before it melts! See you later."

"Doubt it," Wally breathed to himself before responding to her openly.

With that little disaster of a social situation out of the way, he turned back to the more pressing matter: which ice cream flavors to purchase?

He grabbed chocolate and mint chocolate ice cream(it was Jay's birthday, it was the least he could do) then pondered agonizingly over the last flavor, the flavor for himself.

That's when he finally found it.

**o.o.o**

"Okay, here you go. Happy, mom?"

Wally slammed the two tubs of ice cream onto the dining room table where everyone was still conversing over their empty cake plates. His mother raised an eyebrow at him.

"Any change left?" she asked, holding out her hand.

The speedster swallowed and looked sideways, conscious of the item he held in the hand behind his back.

"No."

Now both his mom's eyebrows had shot dangerously close to her hairline.

"Two cartons of ice cream took an entire twenty dollar bill?"

"... Not exactly..."

"Wallace, what did you buy?" she demanded, fixing him with a piercing gaze. Boy, he sure was on thin ice with her today. Well, he was on thin ice with her _every _day, but that was another story entirely.

Wally chanced a glance over at Jay and his wife, both of which had been chuckling in deep amusement for some time, having been seated in the right place to view the contents Wally was concealing behind him. Wally smirked at them, winked, then brought the object forward as he returned his gaze back to his mom.

"Orange sherbert ice cream? You ate an entire carton of orange sherbert ice cream on the way home, after I specifically told you the ice cream had better be _closed and uneaten _when you got back?"

Wally smiled.

"Hey, I got everyone else what they wanted and got a little something extra for myself!"

"You didn't get me any turtle tracks," Barry interjected with humor. Wally waved him away.

"Yeah, but it's not your birthday!"

"It's not yours either, young man!" Wally's father cut in, pointing an accusing finger at the empty ice cream carton.

Wally scowled at everyone, reached into his pants pocket to pull out two crisp one dollar bills. He slid them across the table to his parents. They stared down at it with puzzlement.

"Shouldn't there be a little more than this?" his dad asked.

"Not when I stopped by McDonald's for a few cheeseburgers."

And with that, he dumped the contents of the seemingly empty sherbert container on the table.

No less than ten crumpled up cheeseburger wrappers fell out.


	14. Numb

**Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Hmmmm, been awhile since I updated, no? How about that new episode? Boy were Conner, Artemis and Wally ADORBS with those little kids! :3**

** I'm sorry but I come back to you with angst! **

**Title: **Numb

**Characters/pairings: **Artemis Crock, Wally/Artemis

**Genre: **Angst/Tragedy

**Rating: **T

**Promptee: **Myself. I don't know, I decided to take a shower because I was cold and then this randomly happened!

**o.o.o.o**

Her whole body is frozen.

Her numb fingers take ages to work around the clasps of her quiver and belt and even longer to maneuver the rest of her uniform off. She stares blankly at the dull tile the entire time, eyes half lidded and plump lips pressed tightly together, blue with prolonged exposure to the frigid elements.

The frost from her lashes has long since dissolved, making it look as though she'd recently been crying. That wasn't far from the truth.

Artemis tried and tried to remove the knotted elastic from her ponytail, but her frail fingers would not cooperate and with a strangled sigh she gave up, stepping into the shower. The old taps squealed in protest as she turned them, cranking the hot up significantly more than the cold.

The brief spout of cold water that cascaded down her bare back, the one that, if her body had been at a normal temperature would've caused her to gasp and curse the slow hot water heater, didn't phase her in the slightest when it reached her.

The archer didn't even bother to close the curtain, nor had she bothered to close the bathroom door upon her entry. She didn't care that someone might see her naked, didn't care that she was splashing water into the floor, didn't care that the water was becoming painfully hot to her sensitive skin and that it was running crimson down the drain from the blood that had caked her hair and dried beneath her fingernails.

For a long, long time she stood in that stream of dangerously hot water, not moving, not bothering to clean her self, just letting it pour over her head and drip from her eyes and cracked lips and quivering chin.

Then at last, when the steam stopped rising and the temperature wasn't quite so scalding anymore, Artemis gave a great, shuddering gasp and with a thunk pressed her head against the shower wall in front of her.

The pain of what had transpired that night, the horrors of what she had witnessed and the life she had lost finally came crashing down on her thawed body. Tears began mixing with the water, dripping off her tired face and joining everything else washing into the drain. She tried to remain strong, made no sound at first, but soon pained wails cracked through the silence and all those on the floors below and above could feel her anguish.

She didn't notice him watching her from the hallway.

Didn't notice him walk in quietly and shut the door, nor notice him step into the shower, boots and sweater and all.

Only when Wally wrapped his arms around her from behind did she register his presence. She didn't even need to open her eyes or hear his voice to know it was him, for who else would be so bold as to grab her like this at this moment?

"Artemis..."

Her name came from concerned, dry lips, and she decided that maybe it was okay to completely break down in front of him... just this once.

"Wally," she sobbed, fingers clutching tightly to the damp, woolen sleeves of his red sweatshirt. "She's gone... she's gone and I... I couldn't..."

Her head fills with flashes of blinding snow and blood and _the scream..._

"I'm so sorry..." Wally murmurs, gripping her closer, and he's said this same phrase a hundred times tonight.

But it's not enough.

The memory of Paula Crock's death will haunt her forever.


	15. Interruptions

**Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Update ahoy! Having a massive case of writer's block, but I asked for a bunch of prompts on Tumblr to help get me back in the swing of things. Here's one of them I quite enjoyed!**

**Title: **Interruptions /or/ Not Our Day

**Characters/pairings: **Artemis/Wally, the Team

**Genre: **Humor

**Rating: **T (teens making out, I think you guys can handle it! ;)

**Promptee: **Anon. _**"How about Spitfire, of course, and the prompt being like interrupted during alone time by each member of the Team at different times."**_

**o.o.o.o**

Wally's lips were hot and fervent on her own, and Artemis relaxed into his gentle touch, the soft but aggressive pressure of this mouth as he dragged it over hers, moans bubbling up from deep within the backs of their throats as they intertwined further into each other on the couch. _No Signal _was buzzing in the background.

Artemis smiled into his kisses before moving her mouth down to a sensitive area just below his ear, and she could feel his bold fingers working their way beneath the hem of her shirt to climb up and up her back until they pushed beneath her bra strap and—

"Hey!"

The irritated grunt startled the two teens from their romp, and they jerked apart as if they had been jolted by lightening, hoping against hope that Supey hadn't been paying much attention. Whether he had been or not, he seemed far more concerned about them hogging the couch and, by default, the TV.

Wally and Artemis reluctantly, shakenly vacated the soft green plush and watched from the corridor as Supey plopped down in their place. Wolf padded up and came to a rest near the arm of the couch, yawning lazily.

The TV remained on _No Signal_.

**o.o.o.o**

"Ow," Artemis grunted as Wally pressed her rather harshly against a wall in the gym.

"Sorry," he mumbled apologetically, but the archer was more interested in snatching his lips up in hers to continue what had so rudely been interrupted on the couch. Wally's legs felt weak as she sucked earnestly on his lower lip, and he brought his hands up to pull her hair tie out. Her locks cascaded down freely and he ran his digits through the soft tresses, enjoying the way it made Artemis shiver and release a noise of pleasure into his mouth.

The soft slap of bare feet on the Cave floor barely alerted Wally to another presence in time. He and Artemis had scarcely managed to spring apart, breathing rapid and cheeks flushed as Kaldur entered the equipment room.

The Atlantean paused abruptly at seeing two of his teammates looking so breathless and tussled. Thankfully, Kaldur wasn't a prying kind of guy, and he merely greeted them (albeit with an eyebrow raised in question) before proceeding with whatever it was he had come to do.

Wally and Artemis didn't stay long enough to find out.

**o.o.o.o**

Okay, the kitchen. This was a good spot. Sure, it was connected to the living room, but Supey and Wolf were gone now, clearly preoccupied with something else, and so with a sigh of relief the speedster hoisted Artemis onto the counter and connected their lips for the third time that evening. This time it was _her _hands slipping beneath his shirt, splaying out flatly along this broad shoulders.

He pulled away from her and trailed kisses down to her clavicle, ravishing the skin there with his tongue. Artemis moaned lowly and pulled him flush against her, nails digging marginally into his back. Wally groaned, becoming a little too aroused for his own good when—

M'gann's laughter rang into the kitchen. The archer and speedster resurfaced from their kisses as if they'd been drowning, and Artemis slid from the counter and tried to smooth her hair back down just as Miss M came bouncing in, a brown paper bag under her arm and an amused looking Superboy and Wolf trailing behind her.

"Oh, hi Wally! Artemis! We're about to make cookies!" she told them cheerily, oblivious to the redness in both their cheeks and how Wally was blatantly positioning himself on the other side of the island.

They both feigned smiles in return and made the excuse of getting out of her way until the confections were done, then bolted down the hallway.

**o.o.o.o**

"This... is getting... _ridiculous_!" the irritated speedster managed through their barrage of hungry kisses. Artemis shut him up by forcing her tongue into his mouth. With a heated noise, Wally responded by hiking her up against the wall of the sparring room, one hand tight around her waist to keep her from sliding down.

He was bound and determined this time. His fingers had just crawled up behind her back and unhooked her bra when they were interrupted _for the fourth freaking time_.

Kaldur and Robin were entering the spacious part of the cave, and the Boy Wonder was cackling madly behind his hand because he knew good and well what his friends had been doing up against the rocky surface of the wall. Kaldur remained politely quiet, going straight to the circle to prepare it for he and Robin to sparr.

"Shut up, Rob!" Wally snapped embarrassedly, discreetly adjusting his crotch a bit before moving away from Artemis, who was looking livid. She grabbed Wally's hand and tugged him out of the room before Robin could asphyxiate from laughing so hard.

**o.o.o.o**

"Okay, if we're interrupted here, then I give up forever!" Wally exclaimed from beneath Artemis, who had straddled him atop the safety and comfort of her own bedroom within the Cave. She tugged his shirt off and dropped it on the floor. Wally was a bit surprised when she tugged her own off, and the loose cups of her unhooked bra where the only things keeping him from seeing her breasts. His face flushed a bit at the sight, and he brought one of his hands up to rest gently on her exposed hip.

"Artemis…" he breathed, not having expected this. His chest was swelled with something he couldn't place, and then she smiled affectionately and started to remove the straps from her smooth shoulders when—

"_Team, report to the sparring room for mission briefing."_ came Batman's echoing voice.

"Oh, you have _got _to be kidding me!" Wally snarled, rubbing his face with his hands in frustration and agony.

Artemis impatiently rehooked her bra and squeezed his hips with her thighs.

"Come on, Romeo. Looks like today isn't our day."


	16. Stand in the Rain

**Disclaimer- Don't own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Title: **Stand in the Rain

**Characters/pairings: **Artemis Crock, Wally West, Spitfire

**Rating: **K+

**Genre: **Angst/Comfort

**Promptee: **Myself, but what finally spurred me was an Anon in my askbox on Tumblr, who mentioned they were having a shitty day and asked if I'd be kind enough to write some Spitfire. Hopefully the sad tone of this didn't dampen the Anon's mood more, though. Ahm, besides that, not really sure where this came from. Just kinda pulled it out of my ass, I guess, but hope it's at least half decent!

**o.o.o.o**

It was dark and rainy. She could barely see the road stretching on ahead of her, but Artemis didn't care. Her gut was twisted into a horrendous ball of nerves and emotions, agony lingering first and foremost at the center, and all she wanted to do was just get away from everyone.

She had never felt so hopeless and lost, not since all those years ago at the New Orleans Parish. There was a lump in her throat, though try as she might to swallow it down it remained thick and obtrusive at the base of her neck. Her eyes itched with tears begging to be shed, but she wouldn't dare. No, instead she fixed the road with a steely gaze, brows furrowed as the rain slammed violently into the windshield.

Artemis knew he was following her.

She'd seen him approaching at the last red light a few miles back, before the rain had started, that distinctive red and yellow blur in her rear view mirror, storm clouds framing him. The archer wasn't in the mood for heart felt chats or apologies, least of all from the speedster who had inadvertently caused this inner turmoil in the first place.

So she'd floored it before the light was even green, ignoring the protesting horns of angry drivers who'd nearly slammed into her.

He was close, now, though. She'd had the distinctive hunch that he was trailing just behind on purpose, because she knew good and well that normally he would've far outstripped her car about an hour ago.

Artemis' eyes kept darting up to the rear view mirror, which after a while she had angled down towards the backseat. The item back there, the one that was the sole cause of all of this, felt heavy, like a physical weight dragging the back of her car across the road in a shower of sparks.

When she returned her gaze to the front, she could see Gotham City finally looming on the horizon.

Home.

Her throat constricted and she let out a sob. Just one. Just one and then she was glowering again, intent on staying strong.

Once she entered the city limits, she was inevitably forced to stop at a red light on the rain swept streets, and of course he finally caught up to her. Her mouth tightened into a thin, straight line at the sound of wet knuckles wrapping on the glass, at the sound of his muffled voice pleading with her to please let him in. At long last she deigned him with a peripheral glance; he just looked so pitiful peaking in through the glass, ginger hair plastered pathetically to his forehead and eyes full of concern, so with a sigh of defeat she pressed the button on the driver's side door, the click of the locks sounding like a firecracker in the silence.

Wally jerked the door open and sloshed into her car, his rain-soaked pants squishing into the leather seats as he slammed the door. He was breathing heavily, tried wiping the water off of his face with a damp sleeve, to no avail. But he seemed to find her far more important at the moment.

"Artemis, I-"

"Please, Wally. Please just... be quiet. Until we get to my apartment. Please."

The speedster started to protest, but floundered after a moment and lapsed into stony silence. He rubbed his hands together.

"Can you turn the heat on?"

They drove in silence for what felt like years, driving leisurely through the various streets of Gotham, most of them empty save for a few brave stragglers who were crazy enough to get out in the torrential downpour(much less central crime hub Gotham City at night). Artemis felt a little more at ease as the heat relaxed her muscles and Wally's gentle breathing caressed her ears. Eventually, tentatively, she reached out with her right hand and found one of his wet ones, taking comfort when his calloused fingers wrapped securely around hers. She was still mad at him, but something about the familiar motion calmed her nerves, moreso when he laced their digits.

At last they arrived. At the sight of her old apartment, the one she used to live in with her mother, the comfort and safety that had cocooned the archer previously melted away and she pulled her hand out of Wally's. She could feel his eyes on her, but she ignored him in favor of parking in the otherwise deserted lot.

She left the car idling, left the heat going, and said nothing.

"Artemis..." Wally began again softly, and she looked at him. His hair had been pushed away haphazardly, cheeks flushed from his long stay in the rain, and she felt abruptly guilty for the cold she knew he would get because of her stubbornness, her unwillingness to talk.

"Artemis, I'm sorry. That was... I-I mean... I'm so sorry, beautiful. I shouldn't've said what I said, it was stupid and disrespectful and-"

Wally was stammering now, voice cracking in a way that reminded her far too much of the way he used to sound when they were teens. Artemis stopped him, cutting him off in mid-sentence.

"No, Wally. You were right. What good would it do for me to wear it? What good would it do for me to become Huntress?" she asked, serious grays locked on his emerald eyes. The next part, the last part of her words were like a knife to her heart, aching and painful. "That guise died with my mother."

Wally physically flinched.

"Why would you say that? I shouldn't have said what I did, I didn't mean..."

They both knew what he was referring to. His first, impulsive and hurtful reaction when she'd announced her thoughts of becoming the next Huntress, the way he'd blurted out that in picking up that identity, she might as well turn over a new leaf and become a criminal, too. And how could she even think about taking up that mantle tainted by crime, when she had worked so hard for all these years to make a name for herself, the young herione, Artemis?

Wally looked completely agonized with himself.

"God, Artemis, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean that! Of course you wouldn't... you wouldn't switch sides just because of a damn uniform, a name. I _know _that! I was just... you caught me by surprise, and all I could think... I wasn't thinking at all, actually. Artemis, _please_, take up that name for the real reasons you want to. For your mother."

The archer couldn't help the tears that stung at her eyes now, not as memories flooded her mind, not when she remembered first introducing Wally to Paula Crock, how he had been so polite and funny and eventually so doting. It had hurt when Wally said those things, hurt because he'd known her mother, reformed and kind and trying to atone for her past sins, how could he think Artemis would don her mother's old uniform and dishonor her memory by taking up a life of villainy?

Wally's hands were suddenly on her face, wiping away the tears pooling on her lower lids before they could have the chance to spill over, and Artemis had never seen him look so sincerely sorry and upset with himself in all their years together. It was hard to tell in the light, but his eyes looked strangely shiny.

"Please forgive me, Artemis... beautiful. You know how I can be, so hotheaded and stupid... it's no excuse but, god, I didn't meant those things, I never meant to _say _those things. _Never_. Your mom would be proud for you to wear that suit and do good in it. She would. You know that and I know that. It's your decision, Artemis, and I'm behind you every step of the way."

The archer didn't know what to say, her emotions were overflowing and Wally's words made her heart ache. So instead of replying, she fell forward into his arms, buried her face into his sopping chest, and let herself cry it out. His arms wrapped around her, warm and secure, and every so often he'd apologize again, until eventually he went quiet and started sniffing an awful lot, and she thought that perhaps everything had caught up with him, too. She found one of his hands near her side and laced their fingers; of course she forgave him, and she would tell him that later, later when the tears stopped, later when they were safe and warm back home, later when they were tangled in sheets and wrapped together tightly in their bed, flushed and breathless and _together_.

Later, after she returned the Huntress uniform in the back of the car to the old dusty box of her mother's things.

**o.o.o.o**

**I think in the end I had Artemis put the uniform back up because she realized her mother would be proud of her regardless, HAD been proud of the name she'd made for herself as Artemis. Though you can, of course, make what you will of it. ;)**


	17. Goddess of the Hunt and Hair

**Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Title: **Goddess of the Hunt... and Hair

**Characters/pairings: **Artemis Crock

**Genre: **General

**Rating: **K+

**Promptee: **Myself. I dunno, I thought of this is in the shower. Everyone seems to like the idea of Artemis chopping her hair off when she's older or whatever, but I'm kinda opposed to the idea. I mean, it'd be interesting and I'm sure she could totally rock a short cut, but... I would have to hold a funeral for her lost locks. XD Anyway, this really has no point. Like, at all.

**ALSO, I'm not sure how many of you that read this also read my _Where Darkseid Reaches _fic, but just a little heads up anyway that it IS being worked on and I'm about halfway done with chapter 2. It's slow working and I've got this massive freaking doc full of notes so... hopefully I'll stay motivated! Now on with this fic.**

**o.o.o.o**

Artemis had already stripped naked before she even bothered to rip back the shower curtains and see if she had any shampoo left.

A low curse escaped her lips at the empty little shelf that greeted her mockingly, and she pulled a fluffy white towel from the cabinet, wrapping it around her lithe torso before padding softly out of her room. The wooden floors squeaked beneath her toes.

"Mom?" she asked warily, peaking around the open door that was spilling warm light into the hall.

Paula Crock was in her room, wheelchair back against the bed as she read some corny Vietnamese romance novel in the soft glow of a lamp on the nightstand beside her. Dark irises darted up at Artemis' voice, waiting for her to continue.

"Do you have any shampoo left?"

This prompted a loud sigh from her mother, who pressed her index finger between the pages as a temporary bookmark. She regarded her daughter, standing there on the threshold with her hand on her cocked hip, gray eyes just a tad too serious for inquiries about hair care products.

"You just bought some," Paula said, a little exasperated. "Two bottles. Just the other day!"

"I know that," Artemis grumbled, shifting from one foot to the other. Then she looked up with an imploring smile. "It's just, I have to take a lot of showers, you know, with the work I do, so I run out fast."

She sighed again, placed the banged up paperback novel on the bed and wheeled over to Artemis, a beseeching look on her strained old features.

"Artemis, you really might want to consider a haircut."

At the word haircut, the young archer took a horrified step backward as if half-expecting her mother to jump up out of the wheelchair and attack her with a pair of scissors. Fingers curled possessively around a cluster of blonde locks that had been resting over her right shoulder.

"Uh, no thanks, I like my hair!"

"And it is quite beautiful, Artemis, but really, you spend more money on shampoo than anything else."

"It's not that big of a deal, I can get the cheap stuff. Please, mom, just let me borrow some of yours," Artemis begged, already attempting to shuffle down the hall to the other bathroom, where she knew there was a near full bottle of shampoo waiting for her. Paula rolled her eyes skyward for patience, knowing her daughter would not be swayed on the matter; stubbornness ran in the family, it seemed.

"Oh, very well. But you really _must _consider a haircut!"

Her words fell on deaf ears.

**o.o.o.o**

"Ow!" Artemis hissed out in pain, dropping her bow so that her fingers could scrabble uselessly at her scalp, at the hairs that were surely about to detach themselves in a hot sear of agony. Luckily Supey was on the case, barreling into her attacker and knocking the breath out of him so hard that he was forced to relent his firm grip on her ponytail.

She allowed herself a moment to wince, a moment to reposte at Wally's snarky comment, a moment to pick her weapon back up and nock an arrow into place, intent on vengeance.

**o.o.o.o**

Artemis tried to ignore the looks, the stares, the people blatantly pinching their nostrils together in an unsuccessful attempt to block out the horrible smell.

_She _was out of shampoo, the _Cave _was out of shampoo, and guess who had been volunteered to go buy some more for the sheer fact that she used to most out of them all?

It was embarrassing, and disgusting, and she couldn't help it that Clayface had decided to pretty much sneeze his putrid, runny essence all over them during their fight, or that it was caked in her hair like gum and clung to her costume in unsightly places. She wanted to kick the douchebag cashier in the shin for taking his sweet ass time getting her a box of shampoo from the back, for subjecting her to the stares and the torment that made her want to yell out that she was a hero and sometimes the job wasn't the most glamorous, _clean _thing in the world.

She handed Douchebag his money and exited the dingy little store, and when she finally arrived back at the Cave, cantankerously reserved her right to use the showers first. Nobody protested, probably due to the frightening sight of an angry Artemis Crock covered from head to foot in brown gunk.

It took her seven bottles to get the job done; five to remove Clayface and two for the smell alone.

**o.o.o.o**

Artemis stood naked in her sorry little bathroom, a pair of scissors in her hand as she stared thoughtfully at her reflection. She'd been here for the last ten minutes, painstakingly debating the pros and cons of chopping her hair off.

It wasn't like things happened to her hair very often in battle, this past week had just been a conundrum, a very rare happenstance in which it had attracted more attention than usual. She gathered it all in her fist and brought it up to the mirror, frowning at the charred ends that had suffered the tail end of an explosion earlier that night on patrol with GA in Star City.

On the one hand, her mother had been kind of right about all of Artemis' money going toward shampoo. It took nearly half a bottle per wash on most occasions, not counting the times after particularly grueling missions that left her scrubbing in the shower for a good hour.

But on the other hand... she loved her hair. She'd never cut it, not once.

Her hair had always been long and gorgeous and reassuring against the nape of her neck, and it had provided her a type of rebellion against her _dear old dad_, who had always insisted that it was more of a hindrance than anything; how could she hope to bring down her foes with her hair in her face all the time? Once Lawrence had told her _that_, she'd made it a point to never let it be cut.

The scissors itched in her fingertips, like an irritation to the skin there.

If she cut her hair, she would regret it. She would miss the way it fanned out around her as she slept, the way it streamed out behind her like a golden banner in the moonlight as she bounded from rooftop to rooftop, the way Wally complained loudly that it was the biggest distraction in the world. The way it reminded her of one of the few good memories, the nights when she would beg big sister Jade to put it up in a ponytail just like hers...

With a flash in the light, the scissors snipped away.

Then she stowed the hated things away and smirked satisfactorily at herself, at the long tresses trailing comfortably, familiarly down to the small of her back.

The blackened, ruined ends of her hair floated gently to the floor.

Artemis Crock loved her hair, and if that meant suffering more nights with Clayface in her hair and explosions searing the ends and purposely whipping Wally in the face with it and buying shampoo in bulk, then so be it.

She wouldn't have it any other way.


	18. What's the Occasion?

**Disclaimer: Don't own Young Justice or any of it's characters**

**Title: **What's the Occasion?

**Characters/pairings: **College!Wally/Artemis (when reading this, either disregard the events of the episode _Depths _entirely, or simply imagine the mission ended well and this is a few years later)

**Genre: **Romance

**Rating: **T

**Promptee: **Dottoraqn on Tumblr. And the prompt was "TIME FOR COLLEGE FLUFFIES. Wally takes Artemis out dancing. There.". Well, I think I just surpassed fluffy and careened right into cheese ball, so-cliche-it's-not-even-cute-anymore territory. Ew. God. This more than proves my sentiments that I just can't write anymore. I tried out a new way of structuring my fic and everything and I think it just made things worse.

Anyway... hope you enjoy, regardless. (also why can't you Tab on here so stupid.) Sorry for this less than stellar update.

**o.o.o.o**

~~"_What's the occasion, babe?"~~_

He calls her up one Friday afternoon when she's at home resting and he's just finishing up the last of his exams for the semester. He's babbling excitedly, eccentrically; she can barely keep up with what he's saying, but she catches something about having a good feeling about their grades and needing to celebrate.

He asks her if she has dancing shoes, of all things, and she laughs and tells him she's never been much of a dancer and therefore, no, she _doesn't _own a pair of dancing shoes. She's not even sure what exactly dancing shoes are.

He tells her to forget the dancing shoes, just dress in something comfortable and fancy because he's taking her down to this insanely expensive(and nice) restaurant for dinner and dancing, and before she can protest he's hung up and not a moment later he's skidding to a halt outside their front door.

~~"_I don't own anything 'fancy', Wally."~~_

She observes herself in the mirror, tugs down the dress a little as if she's uncomfortable in it, but she's always liked dresses better than skirts(she despises skirts, especially when they remind her of her days at that stuffy Gotham Academy) and she picked this one out while shopping with Zatanna once. She loves it.

He loves it, too, if the way he walks up behind her and kisses her neck is of any indication. She bats him away, feeling like they're suddenly trapped in some old swing dance movie and he's going to take her to a ritzy bar full of cigar smoke and jazz music and flapper girls and pompous old aristocrats.

He dresses in a nice shirt and khakis and he _still _won't tell her what the occasion is. He's far too excited when he should be tired and lazy and wanting to order take out food after their hard week of college exams(he's griped about it enough for the last month). But no, he's positively bouncing on the balls of his feet, something she hasn't seen him do in such a long time that the mere sight of him fills her with happiness by default.

~~"_You might want to hold your dress down."~~_

This place, it's not close to their complex; apparently it's not even in the same _state_, because the moment they get to the bottom of the steps of their home in Palo Alto, he drops her hand and scoops her up bridal style and warns her to fold her hands over her skirts.

"Wally, where are you taking me?" she tries again, a little impatient. But she's smiling despite herself. She leans into his chest, his warmth, a place she's all too familiar with.

"That'd ruin the surprise, babe!"

That's been his answer all night. She huffs just as he takes off abruptly like a bullet from its chamber. Her hair whips out behind her as she pulls a little closer to him against the wind, buildings and cars and street lights zooming by in a disorienting blurr.

~~"_What state are we in?"~~_

The place is bright and big and... well, _fancy_. The kind of place where you actually put your napkin in your lap and sip fine wines while dining on neatly prepared meals. There are soft songs playing and couples swaying on the dance floor in the dim light, and Artemis feels strangely, awkwardly out of place as she twists back around in her seat and stares at the steaming plate of food the waiter has just placed in front of her.

She smiles warily at her boyfriend, still trying to figure out what exactly is going through that head of his.

"Wally?"

"Yeah, beautiful?" he asks through a massive mouthful of spaghetti; she's not surprised to see that, even though their food had just been brought to them, he's already halfway through with his plate.

"What's the occasion?" she repeats for the upteenth time that night. She keeps her gaze on him until at last he's slurped up the last of a particularly long noodle that whips up to whack him on the nose. She laughs as he wipes sauce away.

"We've been hard at work for months, babe. I figured we deserve a nice night out, don't you?" he asks, gnawing away at a piece of garlic bread. The archer watches him(somehow, over the years, she's developed this odd sort of comfort out of watching him eat, almost finds it endearing, in a way).

"Yeah. Yeah, we do. It's just... this isn't one our _usual _date spots," she points out, at last cutting into the chicken(it'd taken her until just now to realize how hungry she was).

"Oh, I heard about this place from old grandpa Jay!" Wally admits, winking at her across the gilded white cloth, the stuttering candle situated in the middle. "He said this place has been here for yeeeeeears. Apparently, he took Joan here and, well... he just recommended the place."

~~"_Wally, you've only ordered one plate of food!"~~_

She's truly impressed with him, tonight. He only ordered the one plate of food, doesn't bug her for any of hers, and waits patiently for her to finish, chatting and laughing the entire time.

She's impressed because they've been kicked out of several good restaurants over the years because of his habit of ordering nearly the entire menu and sending the whole of the kitchen into a panicked frenzy. He seems determined not to ruin things, this time(that, or perhaps the outrageous prices on the menu are far bigger than his stomach).

As the night wears on and the archer's cheeks are a bit flushed from the wine she's consumed, she notices that her boyfriend's upbeat and frankly overwhelming attitude has all but vanished into one of what can only be described as nervousness. His fingers fidget with the edges of the tablecloth absently and he's sweating a bit, and he's gone through an awful lot of wine despite the alcohol having no obvious effect on him.

"Are you okay, Wally?" she inquires, reaching across the table to lay her open palm across the hand fisted there. He looks her in the eye, gives her a wan smile, and relaxes in her grip. He takes the time to lace their fingers together as she consumes the last of her food.

~~"_Let's dance."~~_

He allows her a few minutes to digest her food and pay for the meal(he won't even _hear _of her paying for a single morsel, won't even let her see the damn receipt, much to her chagrin), then he stands up and shocks her with an offered hand. His face appears a bit rubicund in the low light.

"May I have this dance, Artemis?" (god, he's such a cheeseball and she loves every minute of it)

The floor is less packed now, and there's a slow song. He pulls her close to him as they sway gently to the music, and the cozy atmosphere combined with her full belly makes her lids droop, so she leans against his shoulder until she can hear his heart thumping erratically in her ear drums.

"You sure you're okay, Wall-man?" she asks quietly, pulling away to look him in the eye. He's not listening, though. His emerald eyes are drawn downward, and she follows his frankly appalled gaze to where his hand is fishing deeply into his pants pocket. She frowns. "Did you lose something, babe?"

He looks up at her, startled, like she wasn't meant to see his action.

"Oh, uh... yeah. Yeah, I put some change from the bill there and... I must have a hole in my pocket," he stammers, and she knows immediately that he's lying, because there was no change left. She tests her suspicions by suggesting they look for the lost coins, but he raises his voice in barely concealed panic,"No! No, I mean. It's not worth it, it was just a few pennies..."

The pallor of his face says otherwise, but she doesn't push it.

~~"_Wally, you seem upset... are you sure everything's alright?"~~_

He's stifled for the rest of the night, yet they dance so much her ankles start to hurt. She's tired and more than just a little tipsy by this point, but she's thoroughly enjoyed herself and she can't wait to show him how much. He races them home, not saying a word.

They reach home and she jumps on him in the bedroom, wrapping her legs around his waist so firmly that he backs into the wall, kissing him deeply and thanking him for a wonderful, romantic night. But he doesn't respond so enthusiastically, and she _knows _something is up.

She grabs his face between her hands.

"Wally West, tell me what's wrong. First you were talking my ear off more than usual, then you go all quiet on me, and now you're not reacting to my kiss. Tell me what the hell is wrong!"

He grabs her wrists and hold them, swallows so that his Adam's Apple bobs like an obtrusion in his throat. His cheeks are red again, and his words come out in a barely legible rush.

"Artemis, it's just... I've been thinking, and I talked to Jay and Barry and Dick about it and we're both adults now and I love you so damn much and I just really, _really _want to spend the rest of my life with you and I can't imagine it with anyone else because you're my spitfire and so I was going to propose to you tonight after this romantic dinner that was supposed to be amazing and culminate in me popping the question but I think I lost the ring somewhere and I was too afraid to-"

The archer stops him with a hand over his mouth. She stops him and she keeps her hand there, because she can't process everything. It's too much, and his eyes are imploring and scared and much to her disgust, as she finally registers the full, beautiful meaning of his words, she feels the most miniscule pinpricks of tears at the corners of her eyes. God, she's _such _a girl around him.

The hand comes away and she's attacking his lips with a vengeance, fingers fisted in the collar of his button up shirt until at long last she has to break away for air. They're both breathing heavily and he seems completely at a loss for words.

"Artemis... Artemis, what-?"

~~"_Of course I'll marry you, you idiot!"~~_

It doesn't matter that the ring is gone. What mattered were his actions, his words, his intentions, the things he'd said to her with such earnestness that it had actually had her in tears. The last thing she cared about was some ring, not when she had Wally West, her boyfriend, her lover of eight years, her confident, her friend, her _fiancé_. The only man who had ever made her feel this way, who had ever earned her trust so fully and completely.

And it didn't matter that later that night, as they lay naked and breathless and tangled in their sheets that Wally remembers, remembers with a loud sigh and a smack to his forehead that he hasn't lost the ring after all. He disentangles himself from her, picks the dirty, hole-filled pair of blue jeans he'd worn to class earlier that day up off the floor.

And pulls out a little velvet box.


	19. Perfect Messes

**Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Title: **Perfect Messes

**Characters/pairing: **older!Wally West and Artemis Crock, Spitfire

**Genre: **Angst/Romance

**Rating: **T

**Promptee: **Myself. So funnily enough, this started out as a 5 a.m. muse attack last night when I woke up and my right arm was asleep. It was originally a fic about Artemis losing her arm(I have that version saved), but just when I finished I totally remembered that stupid Speedy already has the whole lost arm thing and it just kind of ruined it for me. So instead I made this about Wally. Because I think I've tortured poor Artemis more than I've tortured Wally, and honestly I've been dying to do a fic along these lines for him for some time. I might actually do a sequel to this, eventually. Also me and angst don't go well together, as you will see. I always have to put sappy romance in it, too.

**o.o.o.o**

Wally wakes up suddenly in the middle of the night, bolts up straight so fast that his back nearly catches in the process; the loud thunk of the crutches that had previously been leaning against the nightstand hitting the floor assaults his ears. His hip is hanging off the side of the mattress, the covers are pooled in a hopeless knot around his thrashing foot, and his abdomen is coated in a sheen of cold sweat.

He gasps and chokes and nearly wretches, his hands coming down to grope hopelessly at the empty space on the rumpled sheets were his right leg might have once rested comfortably, whole and functional, not even a week ago. Tears are clinging to the corners of his eyes, gasps of scared, labored breath pump in and out forcefully from his burning lungs as if he's just run a marathon across the country and back again... and he had, in his dream.

The last time he had felt the wind on his face and seen the scenery blur and blend into the horizon as he ran as fast as his limbs could possibly take him had been little over a week ago.

And now he would never run again.

The speedster rubs at his face solemnly, brings his fingers through his rumpled red hair until it sticks up as if he's stuck his finger inside an outlet, and he feels Artemis stirring slowly into life next to him. She sits up and yawns and stretches, and he watches her quietly from the corner of his eye, taking her beauty in even in the darkness of their bedroom.

"Wally?" she breathes, slowly coming to, rubbing tiredly at her eyes and pushing the mane of messy blonde hair out of her face. Wally didn't realize until that moment, but he'd jerked the covers completely off of her prone form in the throes of his specter run. "Babe, are you okay? Is something wrong?"

Her voice is cracked and husky with sleep and one of the straps on her tank top has slipped dangerously down her smooth shoulder. He reaches over absently and tugs it back up, enjoying the feel of her skin beneath his fingertips. She watches him curiously with her good eye, reaches out to touch his bicep gently. He shakes his head in answer to her question, though his erratic breathing and the one tear track leading down his cheek give him away to her.

"Wally..." Artemis says again, and this time there's a bit of warning in it as she reaches up to cup the side of his face and force him to look at her fully. "Tell me what's wrong."

"Nightmare..." Wally says lamely, averting his gaze. Against his will they drop back down to the stump of his right leg, barely visible sticking out from his checkered boxers. The archer pulls herself closer to him and follows his line of sight.

She immediately knows; he can see it in her expression. She knows he had a dream about running, about pushing himself to the ultimate limit until he could no longer distinguish objects or even colors... and she reaches down, and he sucks in a small, surprised breath when her digits lightly feather over the scarred tissue there, sending a sudden, prickling warmth into what's left of the limb.

"Wally," she repeats, and it rolls off her tongue in the quietest of murmurs. He shudders and grabs her wrists, twisting his body to face her more surely. He rubs his thumbs across the back of her hands before resting them at his shoulders without a word. She wraps them securely at the nape of his neck and pulls herself to him for a kiss, chaste and heated all at once. The feel of her against him, of her lips moving beneath his is strangely soothing and comforting, and he pulls her closer, flush against him.

When they break apart, she rests her head against his chest, wraps her arms around his waist tightly, and they just sit like that for a long time, the room around them quiet. Tears prick at his eyes again in sudden frustration, and one rolls down onto Artemis' scalp.

Frustration at his dreams, always of him running, taunting him with the knowledge he would never do it again, would never oustrip his uncle as he'd come so close to doing. Frustration at waking his lover, his wife up for the fifth consecutive night in a row. Frustration for the loss of his leg and the asshole who'd ruined it. Frustration at the hospital staff who'd informed his frantic wife that there was no way to save his leg.

Frustration that he would never run again...

No prosthetic would ever be able to support him the same way, would be able to withstand the force of him breaking the sound barrier or even anything before that.

He was done, doomed to a life in the slow lane.

"Shhh, it's okay, Wally," Artemis tells him quietly. She's looking up at him now, gray eye stormy and dark and full of emotion. Her lips find his jaw line and kiss it at random. "It'll be okay." Her thumbs wipe his tears away, and he chuckles wryly, perversely as he remembers doing the same for her a year ago when she'd lost the vision in one of her eyes. "I know it's hard. But we'll get through this, okay? We always do. I love you so much..."

Her words are too much for him, mean too much to him, fill his stomach with warmth as he clutches her face, kissing at her lips again while his thumb roves gently up and over the old scar across her blind eye. He mumbles that he loves her too, loves her so goddamn much, that she's the most beautiful thing in the world to him.

At last, he lets her go long enough to lean his crutches back against the nightstand and to retrieve their blanket from the floor. They cover themselves up and settle back down into the heat, and he pulls her flush to him, tucking her face into the crook of his neck and thinking vaguely to himself that they are both a couple of messes.

Perfect messes for each other.

He feels her kiss his collarbone several times with plump lips, sighs at the contact as his eyes droop closed again, her warmth and love and touches engulfing his senses in a nearly tangible bubble that has wrapped them both up like a cocoon. He thinks that, yeah, maybe they will be okay, as long as they've got each other.

And as he falls asleep with her tucked into his arms and her gentle breathing floating into his ears, that maybe life in the slow lane won't be all that bad.


	20. A Celebration in Smoothie

**Disclaimer: ****I do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Title: **A Celebration in Smoothie

**Characters/pairings: **college!Wally/Artemis, Nelson

**Genre: **Humor

**Rating: **K+

**Promptee: **Chaneldancegrl on Tumblr, and the prompt was "Wally going to one of Artemis' archery competitions". Short, sweet, to the point drabble. Once again I take the prompt and twist it until it's barely what it's supposed to be anymore. Anyway, hope you enjoy a little bit of senseless fluff! :3 Also, yes, I am very aware I kind of switch POVs a bit there at the end.

**o.o.o.o**

The sun is bright and humid, bearing down unrelentlessly on the residents of Palo Alto. The temperatures are soaring well into the 90s, shimmering off the sidewalks in the distance. It's a day for trips to the beach, for tanning, skating, water parks and the like; it's impossible to round the corner of any given block without seeing people in revealing bathing suits and shorts cut so short their asses are in danger of falling out.

But Wally's not even remotely interested in any of that. He's sitting in the stands at Artemis' archery competition and his blood is pumping in his veins with excitement as he shields his eyes against the sun's rays to get a better view of his girlfriend, who is getting ready for her next shot. He's sporting a homemade jersey that proudly proclaims "Number 13 is my girl!".

He feels Nelson panting happily next to him, some drool hanging out of her mouth in a gooey mess, cold and slimy as it drips against his exposed ankle. He reaches down and pats her hot fur briefly before turning his attention back to Artemis, who is sighting down the shaft of the arrow in front of her, exhaling deeply.

_She's got this in the bag_, Wally thinks smugly to himself as she lets fly. True to his thoughts, the arrowhead buries itself deep in the center of the bullseye.

There's a smattering of claps and cheers, but Wally is the loudest of them all, perhaps embarrassingly so.

"Wooh, you go, babe!" he whoops loudly, prompting Nelson into a jumping frenzy. She nips at his heels and lets out a single booming bark.

Wally sees Artemis wipe the perspiration from her brow and shoot him a saucy smirk over her shoulder. She winks.

"Settle down, girl," he laughs, wrapping more of Nelson's leash around his hand. He scrubs at her cheeks playfully, nearly missing the announcement of the winner. The points have been tallied up accordingly, and he explodes into a raucous chorus of cheers when his beautiful number 13 is revealed to be in the number 1 spot(as if there was ever any doubt?). He vaguely hears the second place winner, a strong girl who's always giving Artemis a bit of a run for her money; she finished in second by only three points, it seemed.

It's a long time before he can tear Artemis away from everyone, and he ignores her feeble protests as he scoops her ups in his arms and doesn't set her down until they're at a safe distance just south of the bleachers, where no one can see them. He takes a moment to admire her first place ribbon.

"Hoooo, look at you, Miss Thing, raking in those ribbons faster than they can order them!"

He's silenced with a choked laugh when the archer rolls her eyes good-naturedly and elbows him in the ribs. She squats down and lets the still overexcited Nelson jump up onto her knees as she pats her head.

"Might not be that way for long, Hanna gets closer and closer every time" Artemis admits, raising an eyebrow at her lover. Wally lets out a scathing puff of breath, waves his hand at her dismissively.

"Babe, _please_. Who here was a badass bow and arrow wielding hero for four years? I don't think I really need to answer that."

"Hmmm, I _do _have a bit of an edge..." she admitted to herself, standing back up to full height. He could see a flash of pride in her stormy grays, but it quickly disappeared to a look of forced humbleness. "But I'll just let you be cocky for me, how's that?"

"Sounds like a plan!" Wally announced, leaning forward to give her big, sloppy kiss on the cheek. She laughed and shoved him away, and he waggled his eyebrows. "Anyway, I think this calls for a celebration."

"What kind of celebration?" A celebration with Wally usually meant one of two things: going out to eat, or a rendezvous back at the bedroom. Artemis couldn't honestly say she minded either of those types of celebrations, though.

Wally was always surprising her, though.

"What do you say to a couple fruit smoothies... in Hawaii?" he asked with a wink. Artemis smirked, her eyes widening marginally with a show of being impressed and a little shocked; he always used his powers so scarcely these days, but she knew he couldn't resist a good run when the opportunity arose.

"Ooh, that sounds amazing. But, unless you want to ruin any and all romantic possibilities, you might want to take Nelson home fir-"

Artemis was cut off by a strong and sudden gust of wind that loosed a few pieces of flaxen hair from her tight ponytail. She huffed and shoved the strands back into place just as her speedster skidded to a halt in front of her, holding out both his hands to show the lack of dog there.

"Nelson free!"


	21. A Detective's Observations

**Title**: A Detective's Observations (I really despise this title but I can't think of anything else)

**Characters/pairings**: Dick Grayson, Wally/Artemis

**Genre**: Humor

**Rating**: T

**Promptee**: Me. I just wanted to write something from Dick's POV. I've never done it before, and we all know he ships the fuck out of Wally and Artemis so… here you go. XD Silly and meaningless.

**o.o.o.o**

Dick had noticed a thing or two about his teammates Wally West and Artemis Crock.

As an avid supporter of his friends romantic relations(translation: he gave them hell every chance he got by shouting things like "Get a room!", "So when can we be expecting children?", "Can I get you guys anything? Some snacks, a condom?", "I took the liberty of buying you guys a baby name book; hope you don't mind, I circled the ones I really liked".), he had noticed a great many quirks between them.

There was the fact that Artemis, whom had so long ago found Wally's eating habits to be quite horrific(and really, _everyone _started out feeling that way about them), now seemed to take comfort in them, or dare Dick say it, found them appealing. He'd seen her face dissolve into a look that could be described as nothing short of _smitten _even as the speedster stuffed his face so fast one wondered if he'd ever come up for air.

Dick had half a mind to snap a picture of her lovelorn face and use it as blackmail.

Then there was Wally's not-so-secret obsession with carrying Artemis bridal style. He scooped her up into his arms on more occasions than Dick cared to keep up with(because frankly sometimes they were so lovey dovey even _he _couldn't stand to stick around long enough to troll them). Her calves would drape loosely over his forearm, and his free hand would rest against the exposed mid-section of her abdomen, and Dick _swears _he's seen them _touch noses _before kissing, a time or two.

Of course, they always denied any such displays of affection.

There was also the time Dick had overheard the Team's resident archer having a particularly, suspiciously _giggly _chat with both Zee and Miss M about how _sexy _and _cute_(she actually used the word _cute_, jeesh) she found Wally's freckles to be. Believe him, it wasn't a conversation Dick was exactly keen on listening in to; he'd mimed a gagging face to Conner, whom had heard as well and stopped to give him a vaguely revolted expression in return.

Seriously, Artemis had used the word _cute_?

Wally was completely and utterly _obsessed _with Artemis' hair. More often than not Dick had seen them canoodling on the couch at the Mount as they watched movies with Conner and Miss M, and Wally'd have managed to coax Artemis into letting her hair down and the hair tie would have scarcely left her locks before his fingers were nothing short of fisted into them in their spirited quest to entangle themselves there.

M'gann found it adorable as hell when Dick mentioned it to her in passing one day. Supey didn't share the sentiment, if his careless grunt was of any indication.

Yes, indeed, Dick Grayson had picked up on some of the things that made his sickeningly sweet friends tick around each other.

But there was one that he got the biggest kick out of.

Wally West was a food hog(well, duh). He ate like a pig, day in and day out, shoving endless calories down his gullet on a daily basis, never slowing down, never stopping, never picky about the foods that went into his mouth or how much of it(as long as it was a _lot_). Dick has seen him devour whole boxes of donuts in seconds, eat four extra large pizzas in one go, and even order so many cheeseburgers from McDonald's that they'd literally _banned _him from ever coming back.

And most importantly, he never shared. Not one morsal, not with anyone. You either had to steal it right out from under his nose(like Dick always did) or else procure your own sustenance.

However, there was _one _exception.

Artemis Crock could get her hands on just about anything the resident speedster was indulging himself in, beit a box of greasy chili fries or a stack of turkey sandwiches. The first time Dick had witnessed the bizarre phenomenon of Artemis reaching over casually to steal one of his french fries and _not _suffer his whining wrath, Dick's mouth had gaped open in shock. It had to have been a fluke; there was just no way Wallace West had learned to _share _in the past few years.

Nothing meant more to him than his daily victuals.

Expect perhaps Artemis.

Trying to take food from Wally was like trying to take a juicy steak away from a starving dog; everyone on the Team had learned this very early on and learned to leave the boy alone when he was in the 'nourishment zone' as he was so apt to calling it. Even Dick couldn't get away with it, after years of close-knit friendship with the speedster.

But Artemis had obviously earned the right, was probably the only one capable of _ever _earning the right in the first place. Wally shared just about everything with her, rarely got irritated with her taking things from his plate, so long as he had plenty more of it within reach; he shared shakes with her, he shared sandwiches, fries, fruit snacks, pancakes, even his famous _Speedster buffets_, and my god, Artemis could never know what an achievement that last one was.

Dick had tried to steal something from the buffet table once and suffered dearly for it(course, that didn't mean he didn't still pilfer things when Wally wasn't _looking_, now did it?). Ha.

But the thing Dick found perhaps the most amusing of all, was a habit his friend had started developing just a few years into he and the archer's relationship: Wally had started to berate people who attempted to steal his _girlfriend's _food. And really, Dick wasn't going to be surprised if one day the speedster's hair bristled and he started to growl and froth like a territorial wolf at anyone who so much as _looked _at the two of them while they were eating.

The quirks Dick had picked up on were a beautiful testament to just how much his friend's relationship had grown over the years. (He still remembers the silly betting pool he and M'gann had started back in the day, back when the lovebird's snark and banter was sharp and quick and often, and Wally was swimming in a river in Egypt.)

Needless to say, Grayson had a hard time hiding his smug smirk of knowing and approval as he clapped his best pal's back, and everyone watched Artemis approaching from the end of the aisle, her strong, steely eyes looking honest to goodness misty in the bright lights as she approached.

Wally swallowed nervously, _happily_, and shifted from foot to foot as if he could not bear the wait(and really, if this wait was bad for a normal man, it was pure _agony _for a speedster). Dick chuckled and clapped him on the back once more in reassurance.

He couldn't possibly have been more proud to be Wally's best man.


	22. Charade

**Disclaimer- I do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Hot damn, dat season 2 trailer and dat Tigress costume! Unf, lookin' good, Artemis!**

**Title: **Charade

**Characters/pairings: **Artemis Crock(Tigress), Artemis/Wally

**Genre: **Angst/Romance

**Rating: **T

**Promptee: **Myself. There are just too many fun possibilities for thins, ranging from sad to cute to sexy. Unfortunately, I went with more on the sad side, here.

This is actually two smaller drabbles squished together because they were too short to be on their own. Though they do kinda connect, in a way, so, yeah.

**o.o.o.o**

She made his nose bleed. He lifts his head up and there's red dripping down from his nostril, snaking over his lips and dripping from his chin. It splatters onto the concrete.

Artemis—no, _Tigress_—saunters forward, brown eyes conveying the apology she hopes he receives; she hadn't meant for her fist to collide with his face so hard. She thinks she sees an answering twinkle in his green irises as he swipes one wrist across his mouth, smearing the red on his upper lip.

She isn't sure if they're conscious of it or not, but they're slowly fighting each other into this corner that's quite out of sight from everyone else. They punch and dodge and kick and appear to be going all out on one another, locked in some sick dance that's only going to end when someone's neck snaps.

But she knows better.

And he knows better.

Artemis pins the speedster against a wall, the deadly tip of her crossbow's arrow tickling at the exposed bottom of his chin. Neither of them says anything, but the tension is palpable; this is the first true contact they've had in almost five months, and it _shows_. It shows in the way their muscles quiver from more than exhaustion, the way their eyes meet with an intensity that is far too inappropriate for the battlefield, the way they silently communicate:

_God, I miss you._

_It's been too long._

_When will this charade be over? _

_When can I hold you again without having to hide it?_

_I love you._

She gasps when he suddenly turns the tables on her, gripping her shoulders and flipping them roughly until the solid rock walls of the Cave are digging through the spandex parts of her uniform.

Wally kisses her.

It's stupid. It's irresponsible. He isn't thinking. He didn't even check to make sure no one could see them before he assaulted her mouth. He's going to blow their entire cover, everything they've all worked so carefully to craft.

But she doesn't care.

She's missed the feel of his lips on hers so bad that it's a sweet, dull ache when he does now. His lips are chapped and cracked and she can taste the faint metallic flavor of the remnants of blood he'd failed to wipe away.

He pulls back, out of breath, and she's shocked to see wetness rolling down his cheeks.

He's crying.

But _why_?

She knows why. She knows why because she's been crying, too.

"Wally—"

But Conner and Beast boy choose that moment to find them.

In a panic, Artemis shoves Wally away from her with a convincing kick to the chest. He staggers back, a bit hazy, but he quickly catches on and takes a fighting stance, fists raised. The tear tracks on his freckled face are questionable, so she decides to make a biting retort that will make them seem understandable.

"Is that the best you can do?" she snarls, and her heart hurts for this next part, but they had been stupid, they had been stupid and they had almost been caught and now she had to cover for his ill-timed tears. "You've really gone to seed since your pathetic girlfriend died!"

It feels wrong. It stings her tongue and rolls off like an unfamiliar poison past her lips.

God, she hates this.

Wally's reaction is instant and vehement. For that one second, that one second it takes for him to zip across the distance between them and slam his fist so forcefully into the wall that flecks of rock spray out from his knuckles, she knows that he's not seeing _her_.

For that one second, all he sees in the raven-haired _Tigress _taunting him, taunting him relentlessly about a fake death that she realizes, with sudden clarity, must feel disturbingly _real _to him. She can't even imagine the things he's been through, playing the part of the broken, angry boyfriend around everyone. How he's had to attend her "funeral", and shrug off everyone's comforting shoulders, and see a casket with her name on it lowered into the ground with a ringing finality.

After a while it must have started to feel… _real_.

Artemis swallows thickly, staring at the speedster. His cheeks are flushed and his pupils are dilated, but they return to normal as he stares back, horrified with himself for lashing out at her.

_Oh god, Wally… I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry._

**o.o.o**_  
><em>

The frayed pendant snaps with a loud sound that Artemis is sure everyone in the chaotic battle must have heard. The even harsher clack of it against the metal floor makes her cringe, teeth gritted as the slow realization that her cover has just completely been blown comes crashing down around her.

She hardly has time to process anything at all, to make any move to conceal herself in the shadows or make excuses, before something has bowled into her with heavy force, and she's suddenly speeding backwards at the velocity of an out of control semi truck. Her surroundings blur around her.

"Charade's over, babe," comes Wally's breathless voice in her ear as they skid to a stop quite a few feet away from their teammates and friends. Artemis' eyes lock with his, and she doesn't know if they're more full of fear or relief, but the look he gives her is one of grim determination.

"_Artemis?"_

"Oh my god!"

"She's _alive_!"

"It's _Artemis_, she's—"

"_Get a grip!" _Nightwing's harsh, commanding voice echoes out to everyone as he struggles in a choke hold being ministered by Black Beetle. Everyone spares Artemis these… these glances.

Of disbelief.

Of trepidation.

Of tentative happiness.

Of _anger_.

She knows, when everything is all said and done and they're standing on the ashes of their vanquished enemy, that there will be questions. There will be questions and demands and feelings of complete and utter _betrayal_, and she's not sure she can answer all of them by herself.

Wally slips his hand into hers. It's warm and inviting, even through their uniforms, and when she glances up to meet his gaze once more and he squeezes her fingers reassuringly, she knows that he will be by her side every step of the way. Through every unanswerable question and every accusation and every bone crushing hug, he will be there.

And right now, that's all she needs.

Artemis reaches up and yanks the Tigress mask from her face. She _hates _that damn thing right now. She never wants to see it again, never wants to think about the hurtful things she had to do to her friends behind it. It skids across the floor when she throws it, close to where Beast boy is wrestling with someone, and there's this satisfactory _crunch _as a huge green gorilla paw stomps down on it in the midst of battle.

Wally and Artemis rush into the fight together, still grasping hands tightly, meaningfully, and they are a whirlwind, a force to be reckoned with.

Lovers reunited.


	23. Mothers

**Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Characters/pairings:** Artemis Crock, Paula Crock, Wally West, Mary West. Wally/Artemis

**Genre:** Family/Humor

**Rating:** K+

**Promptee: **Myself. So, um... this happened because I was watching _Everybody's Loves Raymond_ today and there was a Mother's Day episode on and... yeah. I know it's not Mother's Day but I just couldn't pass up the idea.

CHEESE EVERYWHERE.

**o.o.o.o**

Mother's Day wasn't a day Artemis kept track of. She didn't mark it down on her calendar and she didn't make any special trips to the store to buy her mother frivolous gifts like flowers or appreciation cards.

Besides, it wasn't like Paula Crock had been around a lot for those sorts of things, nor had it been celebrated during her and Jade's training years.

So when dawn broke on the morning of Mother's Day, Artemis started the day off like any other. She dragged herself out of bed with a tired groan, pulled on some clothes, and ran a brush meticulously through her bed tangled blonde locks.

She tip-toed down the hall and peaked into her mother's room to see that she was still asleep, one of her ever-loved Vietnamese romance novels lying open across her stomach, her hand resting over it. Artemis' lip quirked at the corner before she shut the door quietly and made her way to the kitchen.

Scrambled eggs and toast were easy and simple enough to make, so Artemis set about tucking bread into the toaster and cracking eggs into a pan, and soon the smells of breakfast wafted through the air and curled into her nose teasingly, making her stomach growl.

She sincerely hoped the smell wouldn't rouse Paula from her slumber.

The archer inhaled her slightly burnt meal as quickly as possible, shoving the last few bites in her mouth and depositing the plate hastily in the sink when the noises of her mother's wheelchair across the wooden floor creaked into her ears. She slid the plate she had fixed for her mom to the end of the table, scribbled a tiny note next to it(one that said she had a mission with the Team and would be back late that night, not to wait up), and picked up the dufflebag containing her uniform.

Artemis was out the door mere moments before Paula wheeled in, tousled-haired and tired, to see the perfectly laid out breakfast with the blackened toast and a tall glass of cold milk.

**o.o**

Artemis returned home past midnight.

Her limbs were aching and there was a deep gash on her cheek that had been stitched back at the Mt. Justice medical bay before her departure. All she wanted to do was immerse herself in the warmest, most relaxing shower she could possibly indulge in.

But on her way through the darkened living room, she noticed a tea tray set out on the low table in front of the rugged old couch. It was the usual silver platter she and her mother would set out for some quality time on nights when Artemis returned home at a reasonable hour.

But Paula didn't usually bother getting it out if her daughter was going to be coming back late.

Curious, Artemis peeled her tattered mask away from her face and observed the tray more closely. There was a single cup and pot of tea sitting there.

And it was still warm.

Steam furled its way lazily out of the nose of the pot, and, more strangely still, there was an extra plate laid out, one the archer hadn't noticed at first glance, and it contained a sandwich. Artemis raised an eyebrow at the unusual set-up, not entirely sure of what to make of it. She spotted a slip of paper tucked underneath the saucer and pulled it out, her eyes barely able to decipher it in the dark.

_Thank you for the breakfast this morning, it was delicious. I hope your mission went well tonight. I thought you might be hungry when you got back, so I made you some tea and a snack. _

That was all Paula's untidy scrawl said, but it was enough. Artemis smiled to herself and sighed, plopping herself down on the cushions and helping herself to a cup soothing tea. She'd always liked the tea her mother brewed, and somehow tonight it tasted even sweeter than normal.

Later that night, after Artemis had cleaned things up and was heading to her room for a well deserved shower, she stopped by Paula's room and poked her head in. She was asleep, but the lamp was still on and once again that worn, yellow-paged Vietnamese romance novel was opened on her stomach with her hand lying over the cover.

_Typical mom_, she thought to herself rather fondly. She stepped in as quietly as possible and removed the book from her mom's grasp, lying it on the night stand. She carefully maneuvered Paula's legs beneath her blanket and folded it at her waist, bending down and pressing her lips briefly to her temple.

"Happy Mother's Day, mom," she whispered, and switched the light off and left before she had the chance to notice the smile that tugged at her mother's lips.

**o.o.o.o**

Wally was pulling out all the stops this year. He had actually put the date on his calendar this year, and he couldn't wait to show appreciation to the mom that put up with his ungodly eating habits and made sure he always had plenty of Lightspeed bars stashed away in his gloves before he left for long missions.

He woke up bright and early before anyone else was even _dreaming _about dragging themselves out of bed, pulled his uniform on and was out the door before the crack of dawn. He stopped by three different stores in two different states(hey, he was full of pent-up energy in the morning and he had to burn it off _somehow_!)searching for the perfect card, not caring that everyone was staring at him, wide-eyed, because he was freakin' _Kid Flash _and most of them had probably only ever seen him on the news. He picked her up a bouquet of flowers, and he bought this really awesome cast iron pot because seriously she was the best cook ever and she deserved nothing less than the best!

Wally even got her one of those fifteen dollar iTunes cards, because she was a classical music-aholic(not really his thing, but if mom liked it, who was he to judge?).

"Oh wait!" he shouted suddenly at a checkout in Kansas, startling the already shocked young cashier when he raced off in a gust of wind that nearly bowled over the gaping patrons in line behind him. He was back in a heartbeat, carrying a ridiculously big red bow and grinning like an idiot. "Forgot the bow! Oh, and hey, you might want to call a clean-up on isle five because I sort of knocked a bottle of something over with my elbow..."

Less than ten minutes later, Wally zoomed into the house and was slightly disappointed to find that his parents were still fast asleep.

_Damn_. He had wanted to see the look on his mom's face when she saw all the gifts, but he had some early morning training with the Team and a mission that was due to run incredibly late tonight. With a sigh, he deposited the flowers, the card(which he left a loving message on), and the iTunes card neatly into the pot and stuck the bow on it, setting it in the middle of the table. He stared at it for a moment before shaking his head, removing the flowers and putting them into a pot of water instead.

Satisfied, Wally zipped up to his parents room, left a sloppy kiss on his mom's cheek, and was out the door before she could rouse herself fully awake at the action.

**o.o**

Wally got home just after midnight, weary and sore. His favorite pair of goggles were cracked and his hair was a mess sticking up in every which direction, and all he wanted to do was collapse on his bed and showers be damned until the morning.

But all the thought of sleeping was driven from his mind when he opened the back door and the smell of _food _assaulted his senses, making him awaken fully in less than a second. He stepped in and shut the door quietly, his feet automatically carrying him to the dimly lit kitchen as he tugged his broken goggles and tattered mask from his freckled face.

He nearly drooled at all the food laid out on the table. His stomach rumbled loudly, a clear curse of _Why the hell are you still standing here, jump all over that shit!_

His mom's flowers were still sitting in the middle of the table, and there was a note leaning up against the vase. Wally somehow managed to hold off his insatiable appetite for long enough to flip it open and read what was written there.

_Thank you so much for the gifts, Wally! You're the best son a mother could ask for. I already used up that iTunes card, and Rudy insisted I get some use out of that wonderful new pot today, but I know you have a late mission tonight and I just can't make something in it unless you're there for it. I'll make you something in it tomorrow, how's that? I'm sure you won't be picky about the food I left out for you instead! _

_P.S. Thank you for the comment in the card, about me being the 'greatest cook in the world', but don't think that means you're getting out of dish duty, young man!_

"Aw, man!" Wally groaned.

**o.o.o.o**

Artemis was used to a more quiet awakening. She was used to Wally being awake at least an hour or so before her, letting her snuggle into his side even as he gently stroked his thumb along her shoulder and softly attempted to coax her out of the bed. She was used to growling and groaning in protest, slipping deeper into the covers and pressing her face into his side as his deep chuckle rumbled against her.

What she was _not _used to was waking up to the absence of Wally's comforting heat, or the distinct smell of delicious blueberry pancakes that made her mouth water and sparked a craving within her that was unquenchable. She struggled to get out of bed, but was stopped when her husband pushed the door open and walked in carrying a tray piled high with flapjacks positively drenched in syrup, two forks, and two glasses of milk.

He nearly chuckled at the sight of her.

"Woah, easy there, babe. Lay back down!" he said... not that she had managed to get herself to even a _halfway _sitting position. She situated herself against the headboard and placed a pillow behind her back as Wally plopped down onto the empty mattress space that was his.

"What's all this?" Artemis asked, confused. Wally didn't answer for a moment, as he was too busy trying to find a place to set the tray. Deciding against placing it on her stomach, he settled for putting it on his own lap and handing her a fork. He waggled his eyebrows at her and kissed her unexpectedly on the cheek.

"Happy first Mother's Day, Artemis," he chimed huskily, cutting off a piece of blueberry pancake with his own fork and feeding it to her. It was so soaked through with maple syrup that it ran down her chin and he wiped it away with his thumb, sucking it off.

She laughed, still a little unsure of his antics. "But Wally, I'm not a mother..."

"Well, maybe not just yet," the speedster answered, bending toward her and brushing his lips lightly, lovingly across the tight skin of her swollen belly.

"But I think you qualify."


	24. Cry You An Ocean

**Disclaimer- If I owned Young Justice, this wouldn't have happened.**

**SPOILERS: IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ENDGAME, TURN BACK NOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED AND I AM NO LONGER RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU SPOILING YOURSELF PASSED THIS POINT.**

**I... am really upset. And I'm really sorry that it took something this bad to get me back into a writing groove. But not all is lost: I really think he's just been misplaced. He's not gone for good, and I really believe that. :)**

**Characters/pairing: **Artemis Crock, Rudy and Mary West, mentions of Wally

**Genre: **Angst/Tragedy/Family

**Rating: **K+

**o.o.o.o**

Artemis doesn't even remember how she got to Central City. She doesn't remember the blinding lights and uncomfortable sensations of the Zeta tubes, she doesn't remember the vaguely chilly walk across Central City neighborhoods.

She doesn't even remember climbing the squeaky wooden stairs to the porch.

All she knows is that somehow she's here at the West's front door, and she can't bring herself to move. Her numb limbs are frozen in place, now that they've taken her to the destination she hadn't even known she was looking for. The last few hours have been a blur of tears and nothingness and pain beyond measure. Her eyes stare unblinking at the forbidding door, and she remembers that the last time she was here, Wally had walked her to the door, chatting animatedly, his fingers threaded through hers as he kissed her cheek and pushed the door open like he owned the place.

"_Ah, man, mom, is that RIBS I smell?"_ he'd sighed after inhaling deeply, and the archer had rolled her eyes fondly as she'd lost him to his other love: food.

A small noise releases low in her throat as she blinks rapidly, her eyes itching. A lump is in her throat.

She has to do this. She has to; did he not do this for her poor mother when _she _was…. gone?

It takes her another thirty minutes of quiet turmoil and debate, silent memories that make her eyes itch with unshed tears and the lump grow in her throat, before she finally gets the courage to knock.

They need her, and she needs them. Her second family. _His _family.

Her dry knuckles curl and rap across the wood, though her eyes remain downcast; she doesn't know how she's going to look them in the eye. They already know of their son's fate, she's sure of it—news travels fast—but that doesn't make her confrontation any easier. What did you do, what did you _say _when someone you mutually loved had vanished into thin air?

Within a moment, they're there. The light from the cozy little house opens and slides across her features, bathing her in a light that's far too serene for the situation. It stings her eyes and punctures the dam she had tried to build up around her tears. She blinks, and they come. The tears. She had thought for sure she had already shed every ounce of moisture in her body, but it appears there is more to be spared.

Her gray eyes drift up to meet Mary and Rudy just as the tears spill over onto her cheeks.

And if she had thought they would not understand, if she had thought that they would hold her responsible or not console her, she is wrong. Her irrational fears are proved so wrong. They understand more than she could ever imagine, and so she nearly loses it when they all reach for each other simultaneously, brought together in grief for Wally West.

Artemis's fingers curl into the starched fabric of Rudy's shirt, gripping it like a lifeline. The scent of them overwhelms her, because they smell like _him_. Like his childhood; laundry detergent, spices, shoe polish. It's enough to make a fresh wave of hot tears spill down her face, enough to make a strangled sob rip from her throat. She buries her face further between them both, hoping, maybe, that they can ease her pain.

She says things to them. Her voice is muffled by their shirts and her tears, and they tighten their grip on her as the words spill out. She tells them she's sorry, she tells them that he tried so hard, he ran so fast. She tells them that she misses him so much already, that she loved him so much it hurts.

She cries until she has a headache, and then she cries some more. And Rudy and Mary are there, still holding her, crying with her; the warm tears seeping into her sweater tell her as much. She feels Mary stroke her hair, and that, for some reason, brings out a fresh, choked sob from Artemis.

It goes on like this for a long time. She's sure she's never cried so hard or so long in her whole life, but it feels good. It feels good to let it all out, and so that's exactly what she does.

At some point, when she feels emotionally and physically exhausted, they fall to their knees on the threshold, still embracing, and all Artemis knows is that Wally is never coming back.


	25. Wisdom Teeth

**Disclaimer- Don't own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**I just wanted to write something fluffy like this for quite a while. Based a little on my own experience a few years back.**

**This is early in their relationship, at least early enough for them to still be living at home with their parents and such.**

**Genre: **General

**Rating: **K

**o.o.o**

"Artemis?"

The sound of her name unwelcomingly cuts into her sleep. She scrunches her eyes tight and tries to ignore it, but the voice repeats itself and she's forced to make some sort of response.

"Hmm?" she groans grumpily, eyelids still pressed together. Something warm and wide comes into contact with her forehead, and she peels one orb open blearily to see her boyfriend swim into view, concern on his face.

"How are you feeling?" he asks quietly, pulling his hand away to support himself off the back of the couch as he leans over her.

"Mm," she grunts, closing her eyes again.

"Artemis, you need to eat something."

Both of the archer's eyes open at that ludicrous statement, but Wally ignores her, instead focusing on unwrapping the defrosted ice packs from around her head. She flinches instinctively when the tips of his digits gingerly feather against her swollen cheeks, but he's careful not to hurt her.

Only several hours ago had she had her wisdom teeth removed. The things had been bothering her for months before her mother finally put her foot down and _made _her take a trip to the dentist; it wasn't that Artemis didn't care about taking care of her teeth, it was just that she didn't entirely love the idea of some stranger messing with her mouth. But today it had finally been done, and Wally had accompanied her for support and to help Paula guide her half-high ass to the car(that he had also driven).

And now he was fretting over her, and Artemis wasn't entirely sure what to do or how to feel about the whole situation.

"Mmm…_ hurts_…" she mumbles to him; and really, it feels like Monsieur Mallah has punched her square in the mouth.

The speedster nods sympathetically.

"I know, babe. Your mom is making you some soup. You should probably try and swallow a little of the broth so you can take your pain pills. You know, the good stuff that'll knock you out cold," he stresses, smirking at her. She tries to smirk back and regrets it, moaning in pain.

Wally kisses her forehead and leaves her alone, returning not long later with a bowl of soup, a glass of water, and two large white pills. Artemis just wants to swallow them and go back to sleep, but Wally insists on trying to feed her some broth.

It's a pretty futile practice; the broth is lukewarm but still causes her mutilated gums to ache as it spreads over them. She tries her best to keep it on a straight track back to her throat, but it's just not working. Their efforts end after the fourth bite, in which the pain is so great she winds up pretty much spitting half of it back out on impulse. She feels mildly embarrassed when Wally sets the bowl down and wipes her chin off, and then she really gets flushed when he just keeps staring at her, a smile on his face.

" 'ut?" she asks, furrowing her brows. He laughs, spraying his freckles up.

"Nothing it's just… you look so… _cute_," he says, gnawing at his bottom lip. He brings a hand up to one side of her face and strokes one swollen cheek with the pad of his thumb. "Your cheeks are so puffed up, you remind me of a squirrel with a mouthful of nuts."

Artemis huffs at his analogy, pushing his hand away. She just wants to take her damn drugs and pass out.

"Drugs," she demands, holding her hand out pointedly. He laughs again and obliges her; but not until after kissing the flat of her palm.


	26. Hands

**Disclaimer- Do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters. **

**Genre: **General/Humor

**Rating: **K+

**Notes: **Just a silly idea I got. I'm not sure when exactly this takes place, all I know is they're not together yet, but they're definitely close to being at that point of taking the final step and being together. Enjoy.

**o.o.o.o**

The air is sharp and crisp. Each lungful of winter air feels as though it forms tiny ice crystals within her lungs, clinging there until they burst forth in a white cloud of exhale before her squinted gray iris.

She draws the bowstring back, knuckles cracking and bleeding from the action, but she pays it no mind. It's early morning and flakes of light snow grasp madly at her eyelashes as they float down lazily. The sun is bright and blinding, reflecting into her face from the frozen cars and ice below, making her aim tricky.

But Artemis Crock is no stranger to the elements playing against her bow. She aims true from her perch, her lip quirking with satisfaction when she hears a cry of dismay from the netted enemy who had been attempting to escape from her Team. She's drawing another, intent on grappling to the next roof over to keep up with the pursuit across Gotham, but a rush of cold air and wet droplets halts the action.

"Need a lift, beautiful?"

She looks at him, all red hair, cheeks, and nose. Puffs of air roll passed his lips at a fast rate as he extends one hand out to her, grinning. "Nice shot, by the way."

"Thanks," she tells him, smiling; and maybe it's just the adrenaline talking, but he looks radiant. She puts her grappling arrow back in her quiver and reaches out, intent on taking his proffered hand. But Wally's green eyes are suddenly glued to the surface of her hand, brows furrowing as he grabs it in both of his own, bringing it close to his face for inspection. Artemis raises an eyebrow, curious at his actions (she really hopes the frigid air is concealing her faint blush well enough).

"Artemis," the speedster says in a chastising voice. He lifts her other hand and tilts them both back, showing them to her with such a disapproving look on his face that she almost wants to laugh. "Didn't Black Canary give you some kind of salve for this?"

She observes her hands. They're as normal as ever, save for the dry, cracking skin. There's a fresh cut along one of her bony knuckles. She shrugs.

"Tried it. Didn't work," she tells him, pulling her hands back and rubbing them subconsciously. Wally pushes his goggles away from his eyes, glaring at her.

"And by tried it, you mean you used it the first day she gave it to you and then never again. Right?"

Artemis looks away from him, scowling.

"Artemis!"

"Wally, are you trying to be my parent or something? Not that it's any of your business, but I just keep forgetting to put it on! That's all," she says flatly, daring him to say anything else to her. Their breaths flare out in cold silence for a moment, her eyes drawing down to the streets. Their comrades and their quarry are long gone. "We better catch up. You still offering a ride?"

She puts her hand back out, raising an eyebrow at him. Sighing, Wally ignores her hand and scoops her up into his grasp. At the familiarity of the situation, her arms automatically encircle his neck, her breathing becoming shallow through her nose so she doesn't intoxicate herself with that damn fresh laundry smell he seems to carry even when he's gross and sweaty after a mission. She kind of hates that he can do that.

"When we get back to the Cave, I'm rubbing that salve on your hands _for _you," he hisses. Before she can open her mouth to protest the idea, he rockets off on a dime, stealing the breath from her iced over lungs and leaving her words on the rooftop.

**o.o.o.o**

She watches him gingerly unscrew the lid on the tub of salve. When it's gone, the strong smell of cinnamon and some kind of spice assaults both of their nostrils. They're in the living area of the Cave, No Signal buzzing in the background where Conner left it before they went on their mission. Both their cowls are pulled back and their gloves are gone, giving full bare to the extent of Artemis's pitiful hands. She hadn't meant to let them get so bad; it was the same story every winter, only this year Black Canary had gotten on her about it way before Paula.

"Either of you guys want some hot chocolate? Megs is making some," Robin asks from the kitchen counter, waving at them to get their attention. Wally perks at the offer.

"Oooh, yeah! Make it three for me!"

Robin smirks, clearly not surprised. "What about you, Artemis?"

"I'll take one. Hold the marshmallows, please," she tells him. Robin gives a thumbs up and turns back to the others, who are chatting and laughing around the stove. Wally, meanwhile, gives Artemis a rather scrutinizing look.

"What?" she asks.

"No marshmallows? Who doesn't like marshmallows in their hot chocolate?"

"I don't."

"That's just plain un-American," he grumbles to himself, scooping two fingers into the thick, pasty salve. Artemis snorts, smiling a little despite herself.

"Okay, Kid American, if you say so," she jokes, and doesn't miss the smirk that pushes his freckles up even though his head is bent over the jar.

"Give me your hand."

"Left or right?" she asks mock politely, eyes batting. He snorts.

"Let's shake things up and go with the left first."

"What if I'm left handed?"

His face shows genuine curiosity.

"Are you?"

"I'm ambidextrous," she informs him, extending her left hand. "But I prefer my right."

"Hm. Interesting," Wally murmurs, cupping her hand in his own. His palms are warm and send spiraling heat through her fingers, making her smile against her will. He smears the paste thickly on her hand, and she blanches at how cool it is in comparison to his warmth. He works gently, smearing the salve along her fingers, her knuckles. Her cheeks tingle a little as he pushes his calloused digits down between her own to get the healing goo between them.

"Boy this stuff is potent," he remarks, rubbing the pads of his fingers against her own in soothing circles. "You're probably going to have a permanent cinnamon smell or something."

"Only if you cake anymore of it on. Jesus, Wally, you've already used half the tub!"

"Good!" he declares, squeezing her hand pointedly. "I'm sure Black Canary can get you some more, easy. Besides, you should be putting this stuff on every time you get done training or washing up or whatever."

"That'll happen," Artemis says quietly enough to herself that Wally doesn't notice. Things go quiet between them while he works, rubbing unnecessarily into places that have already had their fair share of salve. She accounts it to him being overly worried about the state of her hands, but she can't help but feel he's stalling. Stalling for what, she doesn't know, but she happily relaxes into his grip.

She hears the sounds of the others laughing and moving around in the kitchen, but after a bit they go rather abruptly quiet. Wally doesn't seem to notice, but Artemis glances over.

They're watching. Well, Zee and Robin are. They're already clasping hot mugs, leaning their elbows on the counter and smiling smugly at the scene on the couch. When they catch her gaze, they both lift their mugs in a 'cheers!' gesture, causing the archer to whip her head away, heat flaring unbidden in her cheeks.

Artemis clears her throat.

"Sooo, is this going to become a thing?" she blurts out without meaning to as he finally finishes one hand and switches to the other. She chokes a little and tries to salvage the situation by adding, "Because I'm still not going to remember to put this junk on, you know."

Wally looks up at her, his face a bit of a mask, which is surprising considering how much of an open book he can be. Then he shrugs, attention dropping back down to his work; he's very thorough, pressing his thumbs along her olive skin long after the salve has rubbed itself away, intent on getting it deep into her dried out pores. She likes the way his hands dwarf hers.

"If you want me to."

It feels like a loaded statement, and Artemis isn't sure why. She doesn't answer him immediately, choosing to weigh her options. On the one hand, saying no will mean her hands will spiral into a worse state and not heal until well into spring; on the other hand, saying yes means having Wally's surprisingly gentle hands on hers every single day after training, after showers, after missions. Saying yes means more time, more contact with Wally West.

And somehow, Artemis is entirely okay with that.

It's not until he's done and screwing the cap back on that she gives him her answer.

"I would like that."

And if maybe Artemis takes a few unnecessary showers in the weeks after, if she schedules a few extra training sessions in, it's purely coincidence.


	27. Not In The Fun Way

**Disclaimer- Do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Genre: Humor/Romance**

**Rating: T for slight sexual implications**

**Promptee: Myself. Idk, something I thought of today. Short, sweet, to the point fluff.**

**o.o.o.o**

When Artemis steps out of the shower, she realizes she's forgotten a towel. She curses to herself in a low voice, body dripping with cooling drops of water that seep into the mat beneath her curling toes.

"Perfect," she rasps, leaning back over the tub to give her hair one final squeeze out. This whole forgetting the towel thing has become a bad habit of hers, but for once her mother isn't here for her to yell to bring her one from the cupboard in the hall.

The blonde pokes her head out into her room, eyes drifting up to the clock above her vanity.

_Five. Wally shouldn't be here for another thirty minutes… or later_, she snorts, remembering how fashionably late her boyfriend always is. He swears up and down that his uncle just rubbed off on him, that he used to be a very punctual kind of guy. Artemis highly doubts that.

Tossing her drenched hair over her shoulder, the archer pads across her room and out into the hall, striding with purpose to the cupboard in the wall. She starts to dig for a good towel, one of the really fluffy ones; so focused on her task is she, that the sound of footsteps across the floor boards hardly registers with her.

And when she thinks about that fact later, she kind of wants to kill herself. What kind of hero gets that distracted by something as trivial as _fluffy cotton towels_?

"_Artemis?" _comes a strangled, choked voice. The sound of it has her body stiffening, her hands halting in their exploration of the towel choices. Her cheeks catch fire and she turns her head, horrified to see Wally standing there, eyes wide and very raptly glued to her naked torso despite the rubicund color his cheeks, ears, and neck have taken on.

What she wouldn't give to sink into the floor.

_Not naked in the fun way, not naked in the fun way!_

"Wally, what the hell are you doing here!?" she shrieks in a voice higher than her own, fumbling with the towel she pulls out at random; of course it's her luck that she managed to grab one of the smaller, rattier ones that has seen better days. It barely covers her in the places she needs it to, but it's better than nothing. Wallace's face is stained the color of Koolaid, eyes still wide and fixated on her. The covering of her body seems to snap him out of it, and he takes a fumbling step backwards, one hand coming up to shield his eyes.

"I'm sorry! I-I decided to come over early, how was I supposed to know you'd be running around naked!?" he stutters out, turning his back on her for good measure. Face still hot, Artemis pushes a loose strand of wet hair away from her eyes.

She feels in some part like she might be overreacting to the situation; her and Wally have been steadily getting to the seeing-each-other-naked point in their relationship, after all. But then again, this was _so _not how she'd wanted Wally to see her naked for the first time.

"It's fine, Wally," she sighs out, starting to take backwards steps to her room. "Just… go wait in the living room, I'll be out in a minute, okay?"

She watches him stumble away, muttering more apologies, nearly bumping into an end table situated at the edge of the hallway. She shakes her head at him in good humor, face still feeling hot and her emotions quite on the embarrassed side. She closes her door and leans against it, letting out a breath, wishing for all the world that she had just remembered to grab a fucking towel.

**o.o.o.o**

It takes her about thirty minutes to finish up, though a good length of it had been spent untangling her locks and dwelling over what had happened. Wally is sitting on the couch when she comes out, his body rather straight and tense looking, quite the contrast to his usual laid back attitude. The archer clears her throat, and his head whips around.

Eyes lock and cheeks flush, and she really hates how much she feels like an embarrassed school girl right now, but her emotions are betraying her.

_Because this was supposed to have happened differently, _she groans inwardly as she pads over to him. _Because this was supposed to have happened in a quiet, private moment when we were both prepared._

"So… I'm ready," Artemis tells him uselessly, plopping down on the couch cushion beside him. It sinks in due to lame springs. The speedster will barely look at her at first, but then he finally does, and his hand is flying to the back of his neck as words tumble forth in a babbling stream.

"I'm _so _sorry, Artemis, I should've knocked, or," he pauses, flailing his hands a little bit as he digs for the words. "Or I don't know I just didn't expect you to be so _naked _and—"

Artemis places two of her fingers against his sputtering lips, having heard enough. He quiets, and she looks over at him with what she hopes is something like a soothing kind of expression

"It's _fine_, Wally. I mean, it's not like… it's not like we were never going to get there," she says, chewing at her bottom lip. She sees his Adam's apple bob a little, the barest of flushes covering his freckles. A hand comes up to rub at the back of his neck, the way it always does when he's nervous or unsure. She kind of wants to kiss him whenever he does that.

So she does, on one of his warm cheeks. He smiles a little sheepishly and then stands up, holding his hand out to her. She returns his smile and takes the proffered assistance

"Ready for our date, babe?" he asks, and she can feel his hand trembling a little beneath hers, either from nerves or some fear that because of that little fiasco she won't want to go on a date with him anymore. She rolls her eyes at the thought, tightening her grip on his hand and pulling him towards the front door.

"Let's get this show on the road, Kid Boyfriend."

He laughs a little at her, following her until her palm is on the knob.

"And, um, Artemis?"

She halts, turning to face him,

"Yeah?"

"This, uh, might sound better in my head, and you can totally kick me if it's inappropriate to say but… you're beautiful, Artemis. I mean it."

The seriousness his voice holds despite his blush makes a warm feeling spread through her limbs. She takes a few steps toward him, close enough to lean up slightly and connect their lips. They're chapped but fervent and soft beneath her own, and the comforting feel of his palms coming to rest on her hips has her sighing into his mouth. She wraps her arms around his neck and pulls away, petting the curling hairs at his nape.

"Thanks, Wally," she intones, sliding away from him, taking his hand again to guide him outside. He follows in a bit of a daze, and it's with a wicked smirk on her face that she informs him of future arrangements.

"Of course, it's only fair that I get to see you naked now. I'll let you ponder the when and where over dinner, Flash Boy."


	28. Things You Said at 1 am

**Disclaimer- Do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters.**

**Genre: Fluff (it's a genre, deal with it)**

**Rating: K+**

**Promptee: Delirious-daydreamer on Tumblr. :)**

**o.o.o.o**

"I can't sleep."

Wally climbs through the opened window in her bedroom, his hair windswept, the freckles on his face covered in a light flush from the wind and his speed. He falls in clumsily but pops right back up, his hands twiddling fruitlessly.

She's in her pajamas, a tank top and some boxers she's stolen from him at some point or another; there's a pizza stain on the edge of one of the legs, but it always makes her smirk fondly because it's such a Wally thing to have done. Besides, she's come to associate him with a whole myriad of smells. All pleasant, but some odd. Pizza is one of them.

"I was about to fall asleep," Artemis whispers in her rasping voice. It floats across the room, not carrying out of her closed bedroom door. Wally gives her a hopeless look, so she scoots aside and pats the blankets beside her. As he settles next to her, her sleepy gray eyes light on the digital clock that lets her know it's one in the morning.

"Sorry," Wally murmurs. "About waking you."

She pecks his cheek, not bothered by his arrival. She always likes the warmth, it helps lull her into a slumber, especially during the cold months. The archer moves a bit closer, leaning her shoulder against his own, and sighs in contentment when his arm curls across her shoulders to hold her close.

"What's got your brain on the run this late, Wallman?" Artemis inquires softly, smiling to herself. This isn't the first time he's shown up at her place this late, and she knows for sure it won't be the last. Sometimes it's planned, sometimes a random occurrence like tonight; sometimes they just talk, sometimes they have sex, and then other times he thinks of something he just can't wait til morning to get off his chest.

She assumes now is one such moment.

Wally bit at his lip, then sighed into the darkness of her room.

"It's just, you know… what if our parents don't go for whole moving-in-together thing?"

Artemis laughed lightly. "That's what's bothering you so much?"

"Yes!" Wally lamented, his eyes wide and serious when he looked at her. Even in the night they were bright and green, and made her stomach do a flip. She frowned at him.

"Wally, you do know that us, you know, asking for their blessing so to speak, is really just a nicety?" Artemis spoke softly, pulling away from the comfort of his side just enough to look him in the eye. "We're eighteen, they can't stop us."

"I'm eighteen," Wally corrected, that worry and uncertainty still tinging his tone. Artemis rolled her eyes at him, letting out a puff of breath against his neck.

"Wally, I turn eighteen in a week, we already agreed to wait til then to let them know our plans."

"I know, I know, I just… what if they think we're not ready?" the speedster whispered. She felt his fingers tighten a little on her shoulder as he looked away from her, gaze catching on an old picture of herself and Jade that rested on her bedside table.

Artemis watched him pensively for a few moments, struck by how much the contours of his face had changed since he was that fifteen year old she'd been too stubborn to admit she liked. His jaw was more chiseled, a slight dusting of peach fuzz growing on his chin and upper lip. But his freckles were still there and bright and peppered, and his lips were as soft as she had grown accustomed to. Different and yet exactly the same.

She reached across and cupped the opposite side of his face with her hand, forcing him to turn and look at her. She pressed her lips against his, feeling him respond in a soft, warm tandem with her own. When she pulled away, she kept her hand on his cheek, and spoke quietly.

"Wally, are you worried our _parents _will think we're not ready, or are _you _afraid that we're not ready?" Artemis asked calmly, eyes locked on his.

Wally's brows furrowed, creating a deep crevice between them that she had a sudden urge to smooth over with the pad of her thumb. She didn't, though, just held him there and waited, watching a hundred thoughts zoom around behind his eyes as he processed her words.

"I am."

Artemis raised a delicate brow. "You are what?"

Wally took a deep breath and let it out slowly, the air wafting over her face and displacing a loose strand of blonde hair.

"_I'm _scared that we're not ready," he confessed, closing his lids and shaking his head. She felt envious of the soft, downy ginger lashes that licked his cheeks when he did things like that. He opened them and the green was so close to hers that she felt her breath hitch. "I love you, I'm _always _sure of. But this whole thing, this… moving in together and being on our own? It's scary."

"I know, babe," Artemis agreed, letting her fingers stroke across his cheek. He reached up to grab the fingers in his own and held them there. "It is. I'm honestly pretty freaked out about it too. But that's why we have each other."

"You are?" the redhead inquired, his nose scrunching up a bit as their foreheads rested together.

She laughed. "Of course, you dork. I just try not to let it keep me and my boyfriend up at night."

Wally groaned and stuffed his face into her chest. Another laugh burst out of her and she wrapped her arms around his warm neck, pulling him down with her as she laid back on her mattress. His body settled between her legs, and he tilted his head up to look at her, chin still resting on her chest as he wrapped his arms beneath her back and around her waist.

"You're too cool for me, babe," he murmured a little muffledly, squeezing her affectionately 'round the middle.

"Yeah," she agreed with an amused smirk, reaching down to run her fingers through his red hair over and over again. She ignored his indignant sound, yawning violently before she continued. "I'm sleepy, Wally."

"Then sleep, babe," he crooned softly, pushing her tank top up enough to kiss her abdomen. "I'll leave."

"Mmm, no," Artemis said lazily, keeping her arms on him. "You're too comfy. Mom trusts you way too much, she'll get over it."

She felt the rumbling vibrations of his laughter through her bones and smiled at the feel.

"Alright, you've convinced me."

"Didn't take much," she teased. Eyes already closed for sleep, she ran her hand through his hair one last time and left it there, murmuring with a tired slur, "We'll make it, Wallman, we're kind of awesome."

"Mm," he agreed, and fell asleep before even Artemis could.


End file.
